This is the first post in a new series that I intend to do in 1-2 week intervals every Friday. Just like Patrick Armstrong does with his RF Sitreps on Russia Insider, these sitreps are intended to cover both developments in the ongoing War in the Donbass.

Assassination of Alexey Mozgovoy

On May 23, the cortege of Mozgovoy, the second most powerful man in the LNR (Lugansk) after President Plotnitsky, was shot up and he was killed along with his press secretary, driver, and bodyguards. Responsibility remains unclear. The pro-Kiev partisan organization Teni (“Shadows”) claimed responsibility, but since it frankly exists more on Facebook than anywhere else, that is unlikely.

The LNR itself blamed Ukrainian special forces, accusing them of seeking to undermine the Minsk Accords. This is a bit likelier, but there is no clear motivation for it, and it is not obvious that Ukraine has the capacity to mount a special operation of such complexity deep in the enemy rear. Objectively speaking, the most likely culprits – and this is an assessment shared by many ardent Novorossiya supporters as well as its enemies – is either Plotnitsky, the Kremlin, or both.

He was long a thorn in the LNR’s side, on bad relations with Plotnitsky personally, for his independent, populist stance and uncompromising opposition to the Minsk Accords. He wanted to press the war on until Kiev’s liberation.

But paradoxically, he also enjoyed a degree of support in the rest of the Ukraine greater than that of the other separatist leaders because of his reputation as a “genuine” person, and his stance that both the people of Donbass and Western Ukraine had a common enemy in the form of Ukraine’s oligarchs and political elites (one of the few things that most of Ukraine can agree on).

His populism and uncompromising stance was painted by his enemies as a kind of Orthodox extremism. His most infamous stunt was presiding over a “people’s trial” of a rapist who was sentenced to death (though the sentence was never carried out), and expressing ideas about the proper role of women that are, how should we put it… would have been considered unremarkable in the 19th century (though in his defense, that particular comment was clearly meant to be sarcastic).

If so, this would not be the first assassination of its kind. The warlord Alexander Bednov, nom de guerre Batman, was killed under similarly shady circumstances this January. If so, this would make it part of a ongoing project to centralize power in the breakaway republics, with the Byronic idealists who drove the initial rebellion getting displaced by toady but effective political managers vetted by Moscow. (Igor Strelkov, unlike Batman and Mozgovoy, was probably wise getting out when he did, assuming himself guaranteed invitations to Russian nationalist talk shows and conferences for life and acquiring himself a hot young wife in the process).

In his case, Buronic in the literal sense: He was also a surprisingly decent poet, and as it turns out, a tragically prophetic one, too (translation by Gleb Bazov):

It is a gift to die in May— An easy task to dig a grave, And nightingales will sing their song Inimitably, like their last.In May, the thunder of storms supplants A funerals’ dismal songs and sounds, And rain that comes instead of tears Dissolves the memories’ regret.The shelt’ring barrow of the grave Beneath the emerald of grass; A cross is a redundant mark Among a grove of weary birch.Beneath the rustling newborn leaves, With irrepresible thirst for life, The sun has yet to burn the grass, And every thing is animate.It is a gift to die in May, To stay behind in vernal dew. And though I could not do it all, There are no doubts where none remain… It is a gift, to die in May…

See my main article here. In short, Saakashvili’s legend is mostly a con: His achievements in improving the economy and corruption are both massively overstated, Georgians are leaving his “Switzerland of the Caucasus” at an unprecedented rate, and his political and military decisions were complete flops. He is however good at running cargo cults in relation to the West. At least in that respect he’s the real deal. How much more pathetic is it that Ukraine is making a cargo cult of a cargo cultist?

Renewed fighting in Maryinka

This week saw the most severe uptick in fighting since Minsk 2, with the hottest action taking place in Maryinka on June 4 where the NAF launched a largescale counterattack in response to Ukrainian attempts to take the area a couple of days previously. In the familiar pattern, both sides accused each other of breaking the Minsk Accords, and as per usual, both were correct. These events were the single bloodiest since the Debaltseve cauldron. Regime forces claimed 5 of its soldiers dead versus 80 separatists. The separatists in their turn said they suffered 20 dead to the junta’s 400. Colonel Cassad, a pro-Novorossiya but militarily objective analyst with contacts on the ground, said the higher figures are more likely, reporting that just one NAF unit whose representatives he spoke with suffered 25 dead by itself, while total regime losses were estimated at 200.

~Note on Casualties

At this point, a little aside about casualties in general, for reference in future discussions. Both sides in this conflict have sought to minimize their own casualties, while maximizing those of their enemy. Done for obvious propaganda reasons, this has frequently reached the level of farce, both on the Ukrainian side and on the Novorossiyan side.

While the “official” death count for both sides is currently at around 2,000 I suspect the real figures are probably 2x-3x higher, since “real life” accounts from both sides that I have observed during this conflict seem to very consistently paint a much bloodier picture than official figures. Be that as it may, the one thing that I will argue that we can be relatively sure of is that regime and separatist losses are approximately equal. This is dictated not by any detailed tallying or anecdotal impressions but by basic military theory. Given some rudimentary knowledge of force concentrations, equipment, attack/defense status, and the intrinsic quality of the troops (or combat effectiveness value to use the technical jargon), you can make fairly reliable predictions about relative casualties.

Applying this to the Donbass conflict, the first two are broadly equal, with the NAF now as well armed as the Ukrainian forces thanks to Russia’s military surplus stores, though the Ukrainians still probably enjoy a quantitative edge. But this is irrelevant for most engagements since what matters is achieving a preponderance of firepower at the local level, and neither side is very good at that because neither side has the capability to wage true combined arms warfare (Russia does, and the Ukrainian military would be crushed within days were it to ever overtly invade. This was true in April 2014, and it remains true today). The NAF is usually on the attack, which is bad, since the standard casualty ratio for attackers against prepared positions with everything else kept equal is 1.3:1, rising to 1.5:1 against heavily prepared positions. Hence the high casualties incurred by the NAF in the monthslong and strategically dubious assaults on Donetsk Airport. Overall troop quality is low on both sides, though by all accounts morale is much higher in the NAF. (Contrary to sensationalistic reports of Pskov paratroopers getting massacred in their thousands by Ukrainian cyborgs at the Airport, the Russian Army has for the most part avoided direct involvement in the fighting, limiting itself to logistical and informational support. The only two major exceptions to this pattern coincided with Ukraine’s two biggest defeats – the Ilovaysk and possibly the Debaltseve cauldrons).

In short, adding up all these factors, neither the UAF nor the NAF has a clear advantage, so the logical conclusion is that – whether they are closer to 2,000 or to 6,000 – casualties on both sides are broadly similar. Incidentally, this conclusion is backed up by POW counts. POWs are harder to hide than military losses. As of March 2014, some 1,800 separatists were under or had passed through Ukrainian captivity, versus 2,800 Ukrainians. This discrepancy is likely mostly or entirely explained by the higher morale of the NAF, which presumably lowers the proclivity to surrender.

Transnistria blockade

Transnistria, including the big Russian military base there, is now fully blockaded on both sides. Any resupply will now have to take place by air. S-300s have been moved to Odessa, and Saakashvili has been made its governor. There are rumors – so far as I’m aware, only rumors so far – that Ukraine is building up forces along the Transnistrian border. All pretty ominous, and worth keeping an eye on. I don’t think anything really serious will come of this in the foreseeable future, but then again, you can never overestimate the insanity of the Maidan ideologues.

The End of Novorossiya?

Novorossiya as a political project has been officially frozen, ostensibly because it is incompatible with Minsk 2. Pro-Ukrainians gloated and rejoiced. Pro-Novorossiyans wailed over yet another “betrayal,” ironically mirroring nationalist Ukrainian discourse centered around це зрада чи перемога (is this betrayal or victory?). In reality, Novorossiya as a political project died out sometime around April 24, 2014, when Putin decided against repeating the Crimean scenario in Eastern Ukraine in a meeting with his top siloviki. What use is a parliament for eight republics when only half of two of them are in said country in the first place? Since then, and especially since the appointment of Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky as heads of the DNR and the LNR in August, it has for all intents and purposes been running on empty. The two republics already possessed all the organizational structure they needed while Novorossiya’s putative head, Oleg Tsarev, had no particular roots in or connections to the Donbass, and they had no particular wish to share power and funds with alternate structures especially once Novorossiya lost most of its Kremlin backing. Nothing will substantially change on the ground. The People’s Militias will continue fighting under the umbrella Novorossiya Armed Forces, with its blue on red Saint Andrew’s cross flag.

The plan now, as it has been since April 2014, is to federalize Ukraine through the Minsk process, guaranteeing the East wide autonomy which would serve to complicate Ukraine’s integration with the EU and make NATO membership essentially impossible. Like it or not, but Novorossiya is superfluous to this. This is not a “victory,” but nor is it a betrayal. It’s an acknowledgement of today’s realities. Here are a few good articles which will provide a good background understanding of the political processes at play:

Besides, there is one more very important thing that particularly panicky pro-Novorossiyans should take solace in: The completely uncompromising nature of the Maidan ideologues themselves, who absolutely refuse to negotiate with the DNR and the LNR anyway.

“We must ensure fair elections. And we will conduct dialogue with the Donbass, but with a different Donbass, a Ukrainian one.” The same position, but in even harsher terms, was expressed at the Forum by the Prime-Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. He is prepared to talk to the representatives of the Republics “only once they are behind bars.” “By the way, we have enough empty cells,” he added. According to Yatsenyuk, his government will never deal with the current representatives of the Donbass. “We will communicate only with legitimate representatives of this region, and we want to conduct legitimate elections there,” said the Prime-Minister. Poroshenko also stated that in Ukraine there is no internal conflict whatsoever. “We have no internal conflicts,” said Poroshenko. “On the contrary, Ukraine has now become more united than ever.” “I will do everything possible to ensure that neither language, nor faith, nor the questions of land, nor NATO, nor any other questions split Ukraine,” promised the President. “The second language in schools and universities in Ukraine should be English, not Russian.”

You don’t need friends with enemies like these.

Right Sector angry about DNR gun rights – DNR legalizes virtually all firearms and Right Sector has a hissy fit about it.

“That’s right! The freaks in the DNR are allowed to have guns, while Ukrainian citizens have to call for help from useless cops.”

War crimes by Right Sector punitive batallions – Openly and proudly documented by one Yashka Tsygankov, a Right Sector militant, on Facebook. They attacked a DNR blockpost, killing everyone except for one person who surrendered. Here he is in captivity: I suppose it is theoretically possible that his two trigger fingers were blown off in the firefight while leaving no other visible injuries. Of course if you believe that you will believe anything. This kind of action was prevalent in the Yugoslav Wars and is the very definition of a war crime. Of course this being committed by the West’s lapdops means that Facebook will not censor it (unlike say Graham Phillips, who has been blocked from posting to Facebook many times now for posting things like the victims of Kiev’s shellings) nor will their be any outcry in their media about it. In fairness, it should be noted that he denies being tortured. But he is in captivity in some dank, dimly lit basement. So his words can’t be reasonably taken at face value.

EDIT 6/6: He has since been exchanged in a prisoner swap, and in an interview with Patrick Lancaster released just now, he has now confirmed that Right Sector did in fact cut off his index fingers (so also makes clear that previous interview was under duress, which makes Ukraine’s Channel 5 also complicit in this war crime). In response to his maiming, he said that it reinforces his belief in the justice of the Novorossiyan cause, that it is all entirely on the conscience of his captors, and that he intends to rejoin his squad and learn to shoot without his index fingers.

Want your wages? Have a call-up paper instead – Workers at a Kherson oblast plant picketing the Rada over nonpayment of their wages – the factory’s owner having become a deputy – were instead presented with mobilization papers. Recipients included disabled workers, as well as specialized workers without whom the plant would be unable to function. Corrupt deputies, unrestrained oligarchy, farcical pressganging, and the wholesale destruction of labor rights are all kind of everyday occurences in post-Maidan Ukraine, but it’s still somewhat remarkable when they all come together in such a perfect confluence. IMF comes a-calling – Yatsenyuk happily obliges.

Ukraine has stopped paying out welfare payments for pensioners, World War Two veterans, people with disabilities, liquidators of the Chernobyl disaster beginning with Monday, since the law of December 28, 2014, on stabilizing the financial condition of the state has come into force. It affects practically all social security beneficiaries, without defining the mechanisms for providing targeted assistance to low-income groups. Kiev has eliminated transport, healthcare, utilities and financial benefits for former prisoners of Nazi concentration camps and recipients of some Soviet-era orders and titles. Compensations to families with children living in the areas contaminated by radiation from the Chernobyl accident will be no longer paid either.

Stories from Oles Buzina – Translation of a 2009 article by the anti-Maidan journalist, slain by Maidanite orcs with the complicity of the Poroshenko regime and to Western indifference, by Nina Kouprianova: The SS Galizien versus Ukraine. Here are a few quotes from it:

One of the neo-Nazi parties that currently preaches the tradition of SS Galicia Division in Ukraine calls it the “treasure of the nation.” Which nation, I wonder. Like the Austrians during the Habsburg days, Germans did not place much value in the Galicians as war material. If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best. An Austrian, Hungarian, or a Croatian native could have a brilliant military career in the Habsburg Empire, but not Galicians. … Not only the commanders of Galicia Division were German, but also the entire headquarters and the vast majority of officers all the way to the company members. Brigadeführer Fritz Freitag led the Division. Major Wolf-Dietrich Heike ran the operations department. Intelligence was under Hauptsturmführer Fritz Niermann. Supply department—under Hauptsturmführer Herbert Schaaf. Sturmbannführer Erich Finder was the Commander’s aide. Friedrich Lenhardt and Herbert Hähnel were assignments officers. Karl Wildner, Hans Otto Forstreuter, Paul Herms, Karl Bristot, and Friedrich Beyersdorff commanded the regiments. Even the pharmacist was German—Hauptsturmführer Werner Benecke (not to be confused with any Beniuk [a Ukrainian name—ed.] by any means!). According to Andrei Bolianovskii, the Division “got a German command spine.” … The Germans filled Galicia with new soldiers from among those volunteers that they initially rejected, no longer embarrassed of their height, but ones who were almost never used in open battles against the regular units of the Red Army. The main task for these “divisioners” was fighting Slovak and Yugoslav guerrillas. Once Galicians even had a skirmish with Ukrainian partisans under Kovpak, who carried out a sabotage raid into Slovakia. German command valued the military qualities of SS Galicia very little. For example, only one of its members was awarded the Iron Cross—Commander Freitag himself—whereas these awards were not uncommon in other Waffen-SS divisions.

But really worth reading in full, not only to see what Buzina was about, but because it is pretty interesting and eye-opening stuff, and you can really see why it would incite such raging murderous hatred on the parts of Ukrainian nationalists.

The only two major exceptions to this pattern coincided with Ukraine’s two biggest defeats – the Ilovaysk and Debaltseve cauldrons).

No question about Ilovaysk, but is there a record of Russian Army participation at Debaltseve in any substantial numbers?

Objectively speaking, the most likely culprits – and this is an assessment shared by many ardent Novorossiya supporters as well as its enemies – is either Plotnitsky, the Kremlin, or both.

Why are these the only two options? If that side is responsible, it is more likely to have been own initiative by LPR’s “curators” (as Colonel Cassad calls them).
But he is in captivity in some dank, dimly lit basement. So his words can’t be reasonably taken at face value).

Not any more. He is back and has given an interview. Apparently the Right Sector shot his fingers off.

These buttons register your public Agreement, Disagreement, Troll, or LOL with the selected comment. They are ONLY available to recent, frequent commenters who have saved their Name+Email using the 'Remember My Information' checkbox, and may also ONLY be used once per hour.

Of course this being committed by the West’s lapdops means that Facebook will not censor it (unlike say Graham Phillips, who has been blocked from posting to Facebook many times now for posting things like the victims of Kiev’s shellings) nor will their be any outcry in their media about it.

Out of curiosity: Does the same thing happen (in reverse) on VKontakte or are they less censor-happy?

As far as I know, VK has very loose standards, and allows pretty much everything from everyone. Certain ukronazis have active vk accounts, but got kicked off fb. So the author might not have been entirely fair to fb on this one.

Of course this being committed by the West’s lapdops means that Facebook will not censor it (unlike say Graham Phillips, who has been blocked from posting to Facebook many times now for posting things like the victims of Kiev’s shellings) nor will their be any outcry in their media about it.

Out of curiosity: Does the same thing happen (in reverse) on VKontakte or are they less censor-happy?

As far as I know, VK has very loose standards, and allows pretty much everything from everyone. Certain ukronazis have active vk accounts, but got kicked off fb. So the author might not have been entirely fair to fb on this one.

You probably have to be pretty extreme to be kicked off Facebook if you're a Nazi who's on the "right" side. Personally I have one Ukrainian Nazi "fan" who trolls me on Facebook from time to time. I don't block him because his antics amuse me.

Yaroslav Okunevsky (1860 – 1929) was born in Halychyna, Ukraine and graduated from the University of Vienna (1884). He served as a ship’s doctor in the military fleet of the Austria-Hungarian Empire. Later, he attained the rank of Rear-admiral of the Military Fleet. He promoted access to healthcare for sailors and instigated the first statute of navy medical service. Many nations awarded him the highest honors. He is also the author of scientific and medical publications as well as interesting memoirs from the trips to many countries of the world. In 1919-1921, he participated in the process of establishing Ukraine as an independent state.

Mentioned not by name here:

In the Service of the Emperor: Italians in the Austrian Armed Forces, 1814-1918

“The navy eventually had Hungarians, Poles, and even one Ruthenian officer reach admiral’s rank, but no Italians.”

There was also one Ukrainian field marshal, although he stayed in Vienna after World War I and wasn’t active in Ukrainian affairs.

To be sure, Ukrainians were under-represented in the higher ranks but Buzina’s claim is ridiculous.

German command valued the military qualities of SS Galicia very little. For example, only one of its members was awarded the Iron Cross—Commander Freitag himself—whereas these awards were not uncommon in other Waffen-SS divisions.

It just goes on from there, a bunch of nonsense. It reminds me of claims that the Russian Empire was stuck in the 16th century, in 1914. Thanks for posting it, I never read Buzina before. He was totally useless – why bother killing him? And did you actually believe his silly claims? You are an intelligent, well-educated man after all. “Eye opening” indeed, what even some intelligent Russians would like to believe.

Playing with google, I came across the Galician Ukrainian major general of the Austro-Hungarian army Josef Witoszynski von Dobrawola, who was later a leader in the Ukrainian Galician Army in their fight against Poland.

Buzina or his translator Kuprianova confused the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes with the lesser decoration that was the Eisernes Kreuz itself. That slight error aside, the remark, like the whole piece, met an entirely acceptable standard of accuracy, and one which with all your years of copying and pasting you have never been able to approach yourself. So you should refrain from slanderously barking at your betters, especially at those who unlike you have already paid a heavy price for their convictions.

Anatoly has talked about the higher morale of the Novorossiyan Armed Forces. It’s important to note that there’s been no draft in Novorossiya. These are all local and Russian volunteers. A lot of the Ukrainian soldiers were drafted. There is conscription in Russia too, but the “northern wind” isn’t often in harm’s way. Among those risking their lives on the front line the percentage of conscripts is higher on the Ukrainian side than on the Novorossiyan side.

“In reality, Novorossiya as a political project died out sometime around April 24, 2014, when Putin decided against repeating the Crimean scenario in Eastern Ukraine in a meeting with his top siloviki.”

That’s the biggest mystery of this war. Troops were rolling towards the Ukrainian border on that day. As per Colonel Cassad, TV time was reserved for a statement by Putin. But then he called a Russian Security Council meeting where the decision was made to call off the overt intervention.

Colonel Cassad says that this was done in response to a threat from the US. He does not know what the threat was and says that we probably won’t find out until after the war. If the neocons were able to produce a threat that stopped Russia on April 24th of 2014, why couldn’t they produce one in February and March when Crimea was being reunited with Russia? The Crimean operation, from the first appearance of “the polite ones” to the day of the referendum, took several weeks. So we can’t say that it took the neocons by surprise.

I’ve asked Anatoly before what he thought the threat might have been. He conjectured that it was the cutting off of Russia from SWIFT, an international bank transaction system. Iran has been cut off from it. I know next to nothing about SWIFT. But why wouldn’t the US have used this same threat over the issue of the Crimea? Anatoly thinks that the US might have a graduated hierarchy of threats that corresponds to a graduated hierarchy of negative (for its elites) outcomes. A Russian march to Kiev or to the Dnepr or to the administrative borders of the regions that voted for Yanukovich for president would have been a more negative outcome for the neocons than just a referendum in the Crimea.

OK, but there’s also the idea that the most effective way to deal with trouble is to nip it in the bud. All else being equal is that smarter or dumber than having a graduated hierarchy of responses?

Anatoly has talked about the higher morale of the Novorossiyan Armed Forces. It’s important to note that there’s been no draft in Novorossiya. These are all local and Russian volunteers.

1. With the economy in Donbas gone, "volunteering" may be the only source of income for many local males.

2. "Novorossiya" claims half of Ukraine with about 20 million people; in addition, Russia has another 140+ million people as a pool for potential volunteers. Donbas plus Luhansk oblasts had a combined 6.5 million people. With all that, they managed to get only about 30,000 soldiers. In 1918, Ukrainian Galicia had a population of only 2.5 million. They managed to get about 100,000 soldiers in their attempt to create an independent country. One can get a rough comparison of morale and popularity from contrasting these figures.

Among those risking their lives on the front line the percentage of conscripts is higher on the Ukrainian side than on the Novorossiyan side.

Correct. A lot of people outside Donbas don't want Donbas and don't want to die for the sake of keeping it in Ukraine. I suspect a lot of the ones fighting against Donbas are from neighboring areas such as Dnipropetrovsk. These people fight in Donbas, in order to keep those problems away from their own homes.

According to available evidence "northern wind" does not include conscripts and participation is on a voluntary basis. It is a small force, so filling vacancies (so to speak) does not present a particular problem. Russia also does not "abandon" its personnel, refuse to treat them or pay them or whatever else in that vein has been suggested. The only complaint I have heard was that those involved were promised "combat participant" status (which comes with certain perks) and did not get it so far - for reasons which are rather obvious. Hopefully this will be solved in the future.

Anatoly has talked about the higher morale of the Novorossiyan Armed Forces. It’s important to note that there’s been no draft in Novorossiya.

Also monthly salary of a NAF private is $400. That's 2-3x higher than in the UAF.

That’s the biggest mystery of this war.

Ultimately I suspect what happened is they drew up an average weighted decision matrix or something of that sort, assessed the various options, and the overt intervention option scored less than the current approach and so was not pursued. I think this is how things are done in countries where foreign policy is managed by professionals as opposed to ideologues. I don't imagine any single factor such as any specific threat from the US was responsible (though it could well have tilted the ultimate decision if the gap between them was close).

OK, but there’s also the idea that the most effective way to deal with trouble is to nip it in the bud. All else being equal is that smarter or dumber than having a graduated hierarchy of responses?

Probably dumber. It makes negotiation all but impossible. This is certainly viable when you have overwhelming dominance but that does not apply to the US/Russia today.

If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25739150

Rear-Admiral Yaroslav Okunevsky.

Yaroslav Okunevsky (1860 - 1929) was born in Halychyna, Ukraine and graduated from the University of Vienna (1884). He served as a ship's doctor in the military fleet of the Austria-Hungarian Empire. Later, he attained the rank of Rear-admiral of the Military Fleet. He promoted access to healthcare for sailors and instigated the first statute of navy medical service. Many nations awarded him the highest honors. He is also the author of scientific and medical publications as well as interesting memoirs from the trips to many countries of the world. In 1919-1921, he participated in the process of establishing Ukraine as an independent state.

Mentioned not by name here:

In the Service of the Emperor: Italians in the Austrian Armed Forces, 1814-1918

"The navy eventually had Hungarians, Poles, and even one Ruthenian officer reach admiral's rank, but no Italians."

There was also one Ukrainian field marshal, although he stayed in Vienna after World War I and wasn't active in Ukrainian affairs.

To be sure, Ukrainians were under-represented in the higher ranks but Buzina's claim is ridiculous.

German command valued the military qualities of SS Galicia very little. For example, only one of its members was awarded the Iron Cross—Commander Freitag himself—whereas these awards were not uncommon in other Waffen-SS divisions.

It just goes on from there, a bunch of nonsense. It reminds me of claims that the Russian Empire was stuck in the 16th century, in 1914. Thanks for posting it, I never read Buzina before. He was totally useless - why bother killing him? And did you actually believe his silly claims? You are an intelligent, well-educated man after all. "Eye opening" indeed, what even some intelligent Russians would like to believe.

Playing with google, I came across the Galician Ukrainian major general of the Austro-Hungarian army Josef Witoszynski von Dobrawola, who was later a leader in the Ukrainian Galician Army in their fight against Poland.

Oleksander Shashkevich, brother of Markian Shashkevich (first Galician to try to popularize the spoken Ukrainian language); Austrian field-marshal, commander of 12th infantry division, and for his work in reforming the military was awarded membership in the Imperial Austrian Order of Leopold.

Anatoly, can this and my other post simply be added to my first one? I miss the edit function of disqus.

Anatoly has talked about the higher morale of the Novorossiyan Armed Forces. It's important to note that there's been no draft in Novorossiya. These are all local and Russian volunteers. A lot of the Ukrainian soldiers were drafted. There is conscription in Russia too, but the "northern wind" isn't often in harm's way. Among those risking their lives on the front line the percentage of conscripts is higher on the Ukrainian side than on the Novorossiyan side.

"In reality, Novorossiya as a political project died out sometime around April 24, 2014, when Putin decided against repeating the Crimean scenario in Eastern Ukraine in a meeting with his top siloviki."

That's the biggest mystery of this war. Troops were rolling towards the Ukrainian border on that day. As per Colonel Cassad, TV time was reserved for a statement by Putin. But then he called a Russian Security Council meeting where the decision was made to call off the overt intervention.

Colonel Cassad says that this was done in response to a threat from the US. He does not know what the threat was and says that we probably won't find out until after the war. If the neocons were able to produce a threat that stopped Russia on April 24th of 2014, why couldn't they produce one in February and March when Crimea was being reunited with Russia? The Crimean operation, from the first appearance of "the polite ones" to the day of the referendum, took several weeks. So we can't say that it took the neocons by surprise.

I've asked Anatoly before what he thought the threat might have been. He conjectured that it was the cutting off of Russia from SWIFT, an international bank transaction system. Iran has been cut off from it. I know next to nothing about SWIFT. But why wouldn't the US have used this same threat over the issue of the Crimea? Anatoly thinks that the US might have a graduated hierarchy of threats that corresponds to a graduated hierarchy of negative (for its elites) outcomes. A Russian march to Kiev or to the Dnepr or to the administrative borders of the regions that voted for Yanukovich for president would have been a more negative outcome for the neocons than just a referendum in the Crimea.

OK, but there's also the idea that the most effective way to deal with trouble is to nip it in the bud. All else being equal is that smarter or dumber than having a graduated hierarchy of responses?

Anatoly has talked about the higher morale of the Novorossiyan Armed Forces. It’s important to note that there’s been no draft in Novorossiya. These are all local and Russian volunteers.

1. With the economy in Donbas gone, “volunteering” may be the only source of income for many local males.

2. “Novorossiya” claims half of Ukraine with about 20 million people; in addition, Russia has another 140+ million people as a pool for potential volunteers. Donbas plus Luhansk oblasts had a combined 6.5 million people. With all that, they managed to get only about 30,000 soldiers. In 1918, Ukrainian Galicia had a population of only 2.5 million. They managed to get about 100,000 soldiers in their attempt to create an independent country. One can get a rough comparison of morale and popularity from contrasting these figures.

Among those risking their lives on the front line the percentage of conscripts is higher on the Ukrainian side than on the Novorossiyan side.

Correct. A lot of people outside Donbas don’t want Donbas and don’t want to die for the sake of keeping it in Ukraine. I suspect a lot of the ones fighting against Donbas are from neighboring areas such as Dnipropetrovsk. These people fight in Donbas, in order to keep those problems away from their own homes.

while Novorossiya’s putative head, Oleg Tsarev, had no particular roots in or connections to the Donbass

True. The Ukraine is more localist (a clumsy term) than most European nations, meaning that its various regions have more local character and local patriotism than the regions of most countries. Italy is like that too, but fortunately for Italians it’s impossible to organize them into large effective armies. So this sort of horror would be unlikely on Italian soil. Anyway, the strong localism of the Ukraine makes the Saakashvili appointment especially egregious. The junta is overflowing with contempt for its subjects.

“According to Yatsenyuk, his government will never deal with the current representatives of the Donbass. “We will communicate only with legitimate representatives of this region, and we want to conduct legitimate elections there,” said the Prime-Minister.”

By which he probably means the appointment of John McCain as the governor of the Donetsk region.

Playing with google, I came across the Galician Ukrainian major general of the Austro-Hungarian army Josef Witoszynski von Dobrawola, who was later a leader in the Ukrainian Galician Army in their fight against Poland.

Just piling on Buzina’s stupid statement:

If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best.

Oleksander Shashkevich, brother of Markian Shashkevich (first Galician to try to popularize the spoken Ukrainian language); Austrian field-marshal, commander of 12th infantry division, and for his work in reforming the military was awarded membership in the Imperial Austrian Order of Leopold.

Anatoly, can this and my other post simply be added to my first one? I miss the edit function of disqus.

As far as I know they encouraged all ethnicities to enter the military profession and to loyally serve the dynasty. For example I think Austria-Hungary had the highest percentage of Jewish generals in the First World War. I'd be surprised if they didn't encourage Ukrainians to serve (and eventually reach the highest ranks) as well.

Like it or not, but Novorossiya is superfluous to this. This is not a “victory,” but nor is it a betrayal. It’s an acknowledgement of today’s realities.

The issue of “betrayal” (sliv) was energetically peddled by Colonel Cassad and only when Shurygin published interview with the representative of “North Wind” did Cassad change the tune. For anyone even remotely acquainted with the basic facts of Russia’s national security apparatus operations as well as with military (and contingency) planning it was clear since early days in June of 2014 that nobody will “betray” Novorossia. The “Surkov’s argument” used by Cassad was demonstration of lack of understanding of decision making at the top military-political level in Moscow.

I think you're wrong about Cassad. As far as I remember he has always ridiculed the idea that Novorossiya would be betrayed by the Kremlin. El Murid (Nesmeyan) has been closer to the everything-is-lost line of thinking. He's close to Strelkov who's bitter about having been fired. I remember Cassad making the prediction that Novorossiya would never be pushed back into the Ukraine some time before the winter offensive. He's been making that prediction ever since.

Anatoly has talked about the higher morale of the Novorossiyan Armed Forces. It's important to note that there's been no draft in Novorossiya. These are all local and Russian volunteers. A lot of the Ukrainian soldiers were drafted. There is conscription in Russia too, but the "northern wind" isn't often in harm's way. Among those risking their lives on the front line the percentage of conscripts is higher on the Ukrainian side than on the Novorossiyan side.

"In reality, Novorossiya as a political project died out sometime around April 24, 2014, when Putin decided against repeating the Crimean scenario in Eastern Ukraine in a meeting with his top siloviki."

That's the biggest mystery of this war. Troops were rolling towards the Ukrainian border on that day. As per Colonel Cassad, TV time was reserved for a statement by Putin. But then he called a Russian Security Council meeting where the decision was made to call off the overt intervention.

Colonel Cassad says that this was done in response to a threat from the US. He does not know what the threat was and says that we probably won't find out until after the war. If the neocons were able to produce a threat that stopped Russia on April 24th of 2014, why couldn't they produce one in February and March when Crimea was being reunited with Russia? The Crimean operation, from the first appearance of "the polite ones" to the day of the referendum, took several weeks. So we can't say that it took the neocons by surprise.

I've asked Anatoly before what he thought the threat might have been. He conjectured that it was the cutting off of Russia from SWIFT, an international bank transaction system. Iran has been cut off from it. I know next to nothing about SWIFT. But why wouldn't the US have used this same threat over the issue of the Crimea? Anatoly thinks that the US might have a graduated hierarchy of threats that corresponds to a graduated hierarchy of negative (for its elites) outcomes. A Russian march to Kiev or to the Dnepr or to the administrative borders of the regions that voted for Yanukovich for president would have been a more negative outcome for the neocons than just a referendum in the Crimea.

OK, but there's also the idea that the most effective way to deal with trouble is to nip it in the bud. All else being equal is that smarter or dumber than having a graduated hierarchy of responses?

According to available evidence “northern wind” does not include conscripts and participation is on a voluntary basis. It is a small force, so filling vacancies (so to speak) does not present a particular problem. Russia also does not “abandon” its personnel, refuse to treat them or pay them or whatever else in that vein has been suggested. The only complaint I have heard was that those involved were promised “combat participant” status (which comes with certain perks) and did not get it so far – for reasons which are rather obvious. Hopefully this will be solved in the future.

Like it or not, but Novorossiya is superfluous to this. This is not a “victory,” but nor is it a betrayal. It’s an acknowledgement of today’s realities.

The issue of "betrayal" (sliv) was energetically peddled by Colonel Cassad and only when Shurygin published interview with the representative of "North Wind" did Cassad change the tune. For anyone even remotely acquainted with the basic facts of Russia's national security apparatus operations as well as with military (and contingency) planning it was clear since early days in June of 2014 that nobody will "betray" Novorossia. The "Surkov's argument" used by Cassad was demonstration of lack of understanding of decision making at the top military-political level in Moscow.

I think you’re wrong about Cassad. As far as I remember he has always ridiculed the idea that Novorossiya would be betrayed by the Kremlin. El Murid (Nesmeyan) has been closer to the everything-is-lost line of thinking. He’s close to Strelkov who’s bitter about having been fired. I remember Cassad making the prediction that Novorossiya would never be pushed back into the Ukraine some time before the winter offensive. He’s been making that prediction ever since.

I don't treat El Murid as serious military observer, the same could be said about Cassad. I had to register at Sevastopol forum in Spring of 2014 only to help allay the panic about sliv perpetrated by Cassad there. I have very good memory about this kind of things. In the end--there is Cassad's blog and we live in the time when pretty much everything is documented and archived. It is all there.

I think you're wrong about Cassad. As far as I remember he has always ridiculed the idea that Novorossiya would be betrayed by the Kremlin. El Murid (Nesmeyan) has been closer to the everything-is-lost line of thinking. He's close to Strelkov who's bitter about having been fired. I remember Cassad making the prediction that Novorossiya would never be pushed back into the Ukraine some time before the winter offensive. He's been making that prediction ever since.

I don’t treat El Murid as serious military observer, the same could be said about Cassad. I had to register at Sevastopol forum in Spring of 2014 only to help allay the panic about sliv perpetrated by Cassad there. I have very good memory about this kind of things. In the end–there is Cassad’s blog and we live in the time when pretty much everything is documented and archived. It is all there.

The only two major exceptions to this pattern coincided with Ukraine’s two biggest defeats – the Ilovaysk and Debaltseve cauldrons).

No question about Ilovaysk, but is there a record of Russian Army participation at Debaltseve in any substantial numbers?

Objectively speaking, the most likely culprits – and this is an assessment shared by many ardent Novorossiya supporters as well as its enemies – is either Plotnitsky, the Kremlin, or both.

Why are these the only two options? If that side is responsible, it is more likely to have been own initiative by LPR's "curators" (as Colonel Cassad calls them).
But he is in captivity in some dank, dimly lit basement. So his words can’t be reasonably taken at face value).

Not any more. He is back and has given an interview. Apparently the Right Sector shot his fingers off.

As far as I know, VK has very loose standards, and allows pretty much everything from everyone. Certain ukronazis have active vk accounts, but got kicked off fb. So the author might not have been entirely fair to fb on this one.

Yes VK is pretty libertarian on censorship matters.

You probably have to be pretty extreme to be kicked off Facebook if you’re a Nazi who’s on the “right” side. Personally I have one Ukrainian Nazi “fan” who trolls me on Facebook from time to time. I don’t block him because his antics amuse me.

Anatoly, I understand that you are pro-russian but could you explain objectively why putting pressure on Transnistria is insanity? It is a cheap, safe and impactful measure that Kiev should have taken a year ago and they are still dragging their feet on implementing a real blockade.

Not the putting pressure on Transnistria part, that is certainly a valid and reasonable strategy especially to use as a negotiating lever on other issues.

I'm speaking of more overt actions against it that would create a real casus belli for Russia e.g. attacking Russian peacekeepers there. Again I don't think that will happen but you never know with these people.

Anatoly has talked about the higher morale of the Novorossiyan Armed Forces. It's important to note that there's been no draft in Novorossiya. These are all local and Russian volunteers. A lot of the Ukrainian soldiers were drafted. There is conscription in Russia too, but the "northern wind" isn't often in harm's way. Among those risking their lives on the front line the percentage of conscripts is higher on the Ukrainian side than on the Novorossiyan side.

"In reality, Novorossiya as a political project died out sometime around April 24, 2014, when Putin decided against repeating the Crimean scenario in Eastern Ukraine in a meeting with his top siloviki."

That's the biggest mystery of this war. Troops were rolling towards the Ukrainian border on that day. As per Colonel Cassad, TV time was reserved for a statement by Putin. But then he called a Russian Security Council meeting where the decision was made to call off the overt intervention.

Colonel Cassad says that this was done in response to a threat from the US. He does not know what the threat was and says that we probably won't find out until after the war. If the neocons were able to produce a threat that stopped Russia on April 24th of 2014, why couldn't they produce one in February and March when Crimea was being reunited with Russia? The Crimean operation, from the first appearance of "the polite ones" to the day of the referendum, took several weeks. So we can't say that it took the neocons by surprise.

I've asked Anatoly before what he thought the threat might have been. He conjectured that it was the cutting off of Russia from SWIFT, an international bank transaction system. Iran has been cut off from it. I know next to nothing about SWIFT. But why wouldn't the US have used this same threat over the issue of the Crimea? Anatoly thinks that the US might have a graduated hierarchy of threats that corresponds to a graduated hierarchy of negative (for its elites) outcomes. A Russian march to Kiev or to the Dnepr or to the administrative borders of the regions that voted for Yanukovich for president would have been a more negative outcome for the neocons than just a referendum in the Crimea.

OK, but there's also the idea that the most effective way to deal with trouble is to nip it in the bud. All else being equal is that smarter or dumber than having a graduated hierarchy of responses?

Anatoly has talked about the higher morale of the Novorossiyan Armed Forces. It’s important to note that there’s been no draft in Novorossiya.

Also monthly salary of a NAF private is $400. That’s 2-3x higher than in the UAF.

That’s the biggest mystery of this war.

Ultimately I suspect what happened is they drew up an average weighted decision matrix or something of that sort, assessed the various options, and the overt intervention option scored less than the current approach and so was not pursued. I think this is how things are done in countries where foreign policy is managed by professionals as opposed to ideologues. I don’t imagine any single factor such as any specific threat from the US was responsible (though it could well have tilted the ultimate decision if the gap between them was close).

OK, but there’s also the idea that the most effective way to deal with trouble is to nip it in the bud. All else being equal is that smarter or dumber than having a graduated hierarchy of responses?

Probably dumber. It makes negotiation all but impossible. This is certainly viable when you have overwhelming dominance but that does not apply to the US/Russia today.

Anatoly, I understand that you are pro-russian but could you explain objectively why putting pressure on Transnistria is insanity? It is a cheap, safe and impactful measure that Kiev should have taken a year ago and they are still dragging their feet on implementing a real blockade.

Not the putting pressure on Transnistria part, that is certainly a valid and reasonable strategy especially to use as a negotiating lever on other issues.

I’m speaking of more overt actions against it that would create a real casus belli for Russia e.g. attacking Russian peacekeepers there. Again I don’t think that will happen but you never know with these people.

Sorry for misunderstanding your point.
Im my opinion Ukraine has always been sympathetic to Transnistria because they want it for themselves. I doubt Kiev will start something serious because that will not only mean opening up another front (and the transnistrian army is pretty big), but also because they would like to replace Russia as the protector of Transnistria, not defeat it and deliver it to Moldova.

Not the putting pressure on Transnistria part, that is certainly a valid and reasonable strategy especially to use as a negotiating lever on other issues.

I'm speaking of more overt actions against it that would create a real casus belli for Russia e.g. attacking Russian peacekeepers there. Again I don't think that will happen but you never know with these people.

Sorry for misunderstanding your point.
Im my opinion Ukraine has always been sympathetic to Transnistria because they want it for themselves. I doubt Kiev will start something serious because that will not only mean opening up another front (and the transnistrian army is pretty big), but also because they would like to replace Russia as the protector of Transnistria, not defeat it and deliver it to Moldova.

As a non-neocon rightist who used to like Putin up until the Donbass misadventure, let me give you a sit-rip…

Putin continues to pointlessly give ideological justification to his enemies. No one has done more to empower and reinvigorate liberal internationalism than Putin.

I sympathized with much of Putin’s outlook but after take a cold hard look at many people he has surrounded himself with and people he had depended on in Ukraine I saw so many that were just cartoonishly buffoonish.

No one has done more to empower and reinvigorate liberal internationalism than Putin.

Reinvigorate? Didn't notice it ever weakening in the first place.

Libya was before the Donbass misadventure.

The drumbeat for war with Syria following Ghouta was before the the Donbass misadventure.

If anything it is precisely today that popular support for Western military intervention abroad is lower than it has been in years. (Perhaps conveniently so since the prime target now would otherwise be ISIS).

I sympathized with much of Putin’s outlook but after take a cold hard look at many people he has surrounded himself with and people he had depended on in Ukraine I saw so many that were just cartoonishly buffoonish.

Yes, Yanukovych was cartoonishly buffoonish. No questions there. Who was the alternative? Contrary to Maidan propaganda, Yanukovych was never Putin's puppet and its influence over Ukrainian politics were very limited.

As a non-neocon rightist who used to like Putin up until the Donbass misadventure, let me give you a sit-rip...

Putin continues to pointlessly give ideological justification to his enemies. No one has done more to empower and reinvigorate liberal internationalism than Putin.

I sympathized with much of Putin's outlook but after take a cold hard look at many people he has surrounded himself with and people he had depended on in Ukraine I saw so many that were just cartoonishly buffoonish.

“but after take a cold hard look at many people he has surrounded himself with and people he had depended on in Ukraine I saw so many that were just cartoonishly buffoonish.”

As a non-neocon rightist who used to like Putin up until the Donbass misadventure, let me give you a sit-rip...

Putin continues to pointlessly give ideological justification to his enemies. No one has done more to empower and reinvigorate liberal internationalism than Putin.

I sympathized with much of Putin's outlook but after take a cold hard look at many people he has surrounded himself with and people he had depended on in Ukraine I saw so many that were just cartoonishly buffoonish.

No one has done more to empower and reinvigorate liberal internationalism than Putin.

Reinvigorate? Didn’t notice it ever weakening in the first place.

Libya was before the Donbass misadventure.

The drumbeat for war with Syria following Ghouta was before the the Donbass misadventure.

If anything it is precisely today that popular support for Western military intervention abroad is lower than it has been in years. (Perhaps conveniently so since the prime target now would otherwise be ISIS).

I sympathized with much of Putin’s outlook but after take a cold hard look at many people he has surrounded himself with and people he had depended on in Ukraine I saw so many that were just cartoonishly buffoonish.

Yes, Yanukovych was cartoonishly buffoonish. No questions there. Who was the alternative? Contrary to Maidan propaganda, Yanukovych was never Putin’s puppet and its influence over Ukrainian politics were very limited.

The kind of leaders thrown up in situations like the Donbass are often very charismatic and hence potentially dangerous to the current elite. I’m glad Strelkov got out before he was topped as I like him (and he lives to maybe fight another day).

.

Disagree absolutely on the casualty figures.

In the early fighting it was clear from the various side’s videos that the Ukraine forces had very large numbers of armored vehicles full of young boys that moved in columns along wooded roads into ambushes set up by much smaller numbers of much older and *much, much* harder men driving around in work vans painted camouflage and loaded with copious supplies of light anti-tank weapons. I think Kiev sent huge numbers of those boys to burn to death inside those vehicles along those roads and in the endless series of cauldrons their commanders blindly drove into.

I agree that since the NAF switched to being more on the offensive the casualty rates are likely to have evened out but the total will still be heavily skewed to the Ukraine side from those early days imo.

.

Glossy

“A Russian march to Kiev or to the Dnepr or to the administrative borders of the regions that voted for Yanukovich for president would have been a more negative outcome for the neocons than just a referendum in the Crimea.”

I think it’s to do with Western public opinion.

The powers that be have been trying to spin the Putin = Hitler 2.0 line to whip up some so far very lukewarm public enthusiasm for WWIII and so have been trying to provoke Putin into actions that fit that narrative i.e. columns of tanks moving into Ukraine, hence the 20? 30? 40? occasions the state department or media have cried wolf over those so far non-existent columns.

(Putin could be bolder in the Crimea because the soldiers were already there and all they had to do was stand outside their barracks.)

Whether holding back the tank columns was the right decision or not I don’t know. I think it was the right decision on the grand scale because it made the state department look utterly ridiculous in front of the whole world which I think did serious damage to US standing. On the other hand “betraying” (at least temporarily) the Donbass fighters may have caused damage that will hurt in the longer term. It’s hard to say for sure yet.

Good comment. I would add that if the neocons were really eager to get Russia openly involved in the war at any cost, they could easily do it, most obviously by having Kiev and Kishinev attack the Russian peacekeepers in the PMR. They have not yet done so, therefore may have been bluffing.

That day when huge Russian military columns rolled towards the border and were stopped at the last moment was April 24th of 2004. At that time the Ukrainian army was many times weaker than it is now. I've read an interview with Turchinov, the junta's leader at the time, where he said that in the beginning the Ukraine had only 3,000 troops at the ready, i.e. not on paper but in real life, ready to fight.

Half of the Ukraine could have been liberated with almost no bloodhed. Only one person died during the Crimean operation. That could have been repeated across south-eastern Ukraine. Tens of thousands of lives would have been saved.

Most of the serious military equipment that the Ukraine inherited from the Soviet Union was either stolen or lay rotting. The Ukrainian state itself was a rotten carcass, totally looted-out by the sort of people that the Western media calls democratic reformers. The civilian parts of it are still rotten, but during the year that has passed Western advisors, Western money, Eastern European arms supplies and difficult experiences strengthened the Ukrainian army.

That historical moment, April of 2014, when the child-killing scum of the Kiev junta could have been sweapt away without bloodshed, is gone forever. The legitimate president of the Ukraine was in Russia, eager to cooperate. His term hadn't run out yet. Why was that opportunity squandered by the Kremlin, why did all of those people have to die in the Donbass? These are important questions.

As for your theory, i.e. the Kremlin's concerns about Western public opinion, no matter what the Kremlin does, it will be painted in the darkest colors imaginable in the Western media. There does not have to be any connection between reality and propaganda. So it probably makes no sense for Russia, China, Iran, etc. to consider the impact of their actions on the picture put out by the Western media.

As a non-neocon rightist who used to like Putin up until the Donbass misadventure, let me give you a sit-rip...

Putin continues to pointlessly give ideological justification to his enemies. No one has done more to empower and reinvigorate liberal internationalism than Putin.

I sympathized with much of Putin's outlook but after take a cold hard look at many people he has surrounded himself with and people he had depended on in Ukraine I saw so many that were just cartoonishly buffoonish.

Putin continues to pointlessly give ideological justification to his enemies. No one has done more to empower and reinvigorate liberal internationalism than Putin.

I’d say that’s almost exactly the opposite of the truth.

On the other hand if you mean the stuff the media says he does then sure but they could say that about anybody.

The kind of leaders thrown up in situations like the Donbass are often very charismatic and hence potentially dangerous to the current elite. I'm glad Strelkov got out before he was topped as I like him (and he lives to maybe fight another day).

.

Disagree absolutely on the casualty figures.

In the early fighting it was clear from the various side's videos that the Ukraine forces had very large numbers of armored vehicles full of young boys that moved in columns along wooded roads into ambushes set up by much smaller numbers of much older and *much, much* harder men driving around in work vans painted camouflage and loaded with copious supplies of light anti-tank weapons. I think Kiev sent huge numbers of those boys to burn to death inside those vehicles along those roads and in the endless series of cauldrons their commanders blindly drove into.

I agree that since the NAF switched to being more on the offensive the casualty rates are likely to have evened out but the total will still be heavily skewed to the Ukraine side from those early days imo.

.

Glossy

"A Russian march to Kiev or to the Dnepr or to the administrative borders of the regions that voted for Yanukovich for president would have been a more negative outcome for the neocons than just a referendum in the Crimea."

I think it's to do with Western public opinion.

The powers that be have been trying to spin the Putin = Hitler 2.0 line to whip up some so far very lukewarm public enthusiasm for WWIII and so have been trying to provoke Putin into actions that fit that narrative i.e. columns of tanks moving into Ukraine, hence the 20? 30? 40? occasions the state department or media have cried wolf over those so far non-existent columns.

(Putin could be bolder in the Crimea because the soldiers were already there and all they had to do was stand outside their barracks.)

Whether holding back the tank columns was the right decision or not I don't know. I think it was the right decision on the grand scale because it made the state department look utterly ridiculous in front of the whole world which I think did serious damage to US standing. On the other hand "betraying" (at least temporarily) the Donbass fighters may have caused damage that will hurt in the longer term. It's hard to say for sure yet.

Good comment. I would add that if the neocons were really eager to get Russia openly involved in the war at any cost, they could easily do it, most obviously by having Kiev and Kishinev attack the Russian peacekeepers in the PMR. They have not yet done so, therefore may have been bluffing.

If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25739150

Rear-Admiral Yaroslav Okunevsky.

Yaroslav Okunevsky (1860 - 1929) was born in Halychyna, Ukraine and graduated from the University of Vienna (1884). He served as a ship's doctor in the military fleet of the Austria-Hungarian Empire. Later, he attained the rank of Rear-admiral of the Military Fleet. He promoted access to healthcare for sailors and instigated the first statute of navy medical service. Many nations awarded him the highest honors. He is also the author of scientific and medical publications as well as interesting memoirs from the trips to many countries of the world. In 1919-1921, he participated in the process of establishing Ukraine as an independent state.

Mentioned not by name here:

In the Service of the Emperor: Italians in the Austrian Armed Forces, 1814-1918

"The navy eventually had Hungarians, Poles, and even one Ruthenian officer reach admiral's rank, but no Italians."

There was also one Ukrainian field marshal, although he stayed in Vienna after World War I and wasn't active in Ukrainian affairs.

To be sure, Ukrainians were under-represented in the higher ranks but Buzina's claim is ridiculous.

German command valued the military qualities of SS Galicia very little. For example, only one of its members was awarded the Iron Cross—Commander Freitag himself—whereas these awards were not uncommon in other Waffen-SS divisions.

It just goes on from there, a bunch of nonsense. It reminds me of claims that the Russian Empire was stuck in the 16th century, in 1914. Thanks for posting it, I never read Buzina before. He was totally useless - why bother killing him? And did you actually believe his silly claims? You are an intelligent, well-educated man after all. "Eye opening" indeed, what even some intelligent Russians would like to believe.

Buzina or his translator Kuprianova confused the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes with the lesser decoration that was the Eisernes Kreuz itself. That slight error aside, the remark, like the whole piece, met an entirely acceptable standard of accuracy, and one which with all your years of copying and pasting you have never been able to approach yourself. So you should refrain from slanderously barking at your betters, especially at those who unlike you have already paid a heavy price for their convictions.

The kind of leaders thrown up in situations like the Donbass are often very charismatic and hence potentially dangerous to the current elite. I'm glad Strelkov got out before he was topped as I like him (and he lives to maybe fight another day).

.

Disagree absolutely on the casualty figures.

In the early fighting it was clear from the various side's videos that the Ukraine forces had very large numbers of armored vehicles full of young boys that moved in columns along wooded roads into ambushes set up by much smaller numbers of much older and *much, much* harder men driving around in work vans painted camouflage and loaded with copious supplies of light anti-tank weapons. I think Kiev sent huge numbers of those boys to burn to death inside those vehicles along those roads and in the endless series of cauldrons their commanders blindly drove into.

I agree that since the NAF switched to being more on the offensive the casualty rates are likely to have evened out but the total will still be heavily skewed to the Ukraine side from those early days imo.

.

Glossy

"A Russian march to Kiev or to the Dnepr or to the administrative borders of the regions that voted for Yanukovich for president would have been a more negative outcome for the neocons than just a referendum in the Crimea."

I think it's to do with Western public opinion.

The powers that be have been trying to spin the Putin = Hitler 2.0 line to whip up some so far very lukewarm public enthusiasm for WWIII and so have been trying to provoke Putin into actions that fit that narrative i.e. columns of tanks moving into Ukraine, hence the 20? 30? 40? occasions the state department or media have cried wolf over those so far non-existent columns.

(Putin could be bolder in the Crimea because the soldiers were already there and all they had to do was stand outside their barracks.)

Whether holding back the tank columns was the right decision or not I don't know. I think it was the right decision on the grand scale because it made the state department look utterly ridiculous in front of the whole world which I think did serious damage to US standing. On the other hand "betraying" (at least temporarily) the Donbass fighters may have caused damage that will hurt in the longer term. It's hard to say for sure yet.

That day when huge Russian military columns rolled towards the border and were stopped at the last moment was April 24th of 2004. At that time the Ukrainian army was many times weaker than it is now. I’ve read an interview with Turchinov, the junta’s leader at the time, where he said that in the beginning the Ukraine had only 3,000 troops at the ready, i.e. not on paper but in real life, ready to fight.

Half of the Ukraine could have been liberated with almost no bloodhed. Only one person died during the Crimean operation. That could have been repeated across south-eastern Ukraine. Tens of thousands of lives would have been saved.

Most of the serious military equipment that the Ukraine inherited from the Soviet Union was either stolen or lay rotting. The Ukrainian state itself was a rotten carcass, totally looted-out by the sort of people that the Western media calls democratic reformers. The civilian parts of it are still rotten, but during the year that has passed Western advisors, Western money, Eastern European arms supplies and difficult experiences strengthened the Ukrainian army.

That historical moment, April of 2014, when the child-killing scum of the Kiev junta could have been sweapt away without bloodshed, is gone forever. The legitimate president of the Ukraine was in Russia, eager to cooperate. His term hadn’t run out yet. Why was that opportunity squandered by the Kremlin, why did all of those people have to die in the Donbass? These are important questions.

As for your theory, i.e. the Kremlin’s concerns about Western public opinion, no matter what the Kremlin does, it will be painted in the darkest colors imaginable in the Western media. There does not have to be any connection between reality and propaganda. So it probably makes no sense for Russia, China, Iran, etc. to consider the impact of their actions on the picture put out by the Western media.

Your description of the events is somewhat skewed (BTW, that is how Colonel Cassad largely interprets them), there couldn't have been any "opportunity" since, unlike Crimea, Donbas, at that time, was a part of a sovereign, however rotten to the core, state. There are reasons to believe that at the time the population of "moia hata s krayu" (that is neither pro-independence nor pro-Russian) was a dominant, swinging, force in the region, even despite the referendum. The very large number of combat-worthy Donbas males who escaped to Russia testifies to that. This was a legitimate issue then. Obviously, today most of Donbas people hate Ukraine. As per how Russia, if forced, will fight Ukrainian forces is a separate issue, it is not going to be good for Ukrainians, nor will it be good for any external (presumably NATO or US) force which would exercise this suicidal option.

That day when huge Russian military columns rolled towards the border and were stopped at the last moment was April 24th of 2004. At that time the Ukrainian army was many times weaker than it is now. I've read an interview with Turchinov, the junta's leader at the time, where he said that in the beginning the Ukraine had only 3,000 troops at the ready, i.e. not on paper but in real life, ready to fight.

Half of the Ukraine could have been liberated with almost no bloodhed. Only one person died during the Crimean operation. That could have been repeated across south-eastern Ukraine. Tens of thousands of lives would have been saved.

Most of the serious military equipment that the Ukraine inherited from the Soviet Union was either stolen or lay rotting. The Ukrainian state itself was a rotten carcass, totally looted-out by the sort of people that the Western media calls democratic reformers. The civilian parts of it are still rotten, but during the year that has passed Western advisors, Western money, Eastern European arms supplies and difficult experiences strengthened the Ukrainian army.

That historical moment, April of 2014, when the child-killing scum of the Kiev junta could have been sweapt away without bloodshed, is gone forever. The legitimate president of the Ukraine was in Russia, eager to cooperate. His term hadn't run out yet. Why was that opportunity squandered by the Kremlin, why did all of those people have to die in the Donbass? These are important questions.

As for your theory, i.e. the Kremlin's concerns about Western public opinion, no matter what the Kremlin does, it will be painted in the darkest colors imaginable in the Western media. There does not have to be any connection between reality and propaganda. So it probably makes no sense for Russia, China, Iran, etc. to consider the impact of their actions on the picture put out by the Western media.

Your description of the events is somewhat skewed (BTW, that is how Colonel Cassad largely interprets them), there couldn’t have been any “opportunity” since, unlike Crimea, Donbas, at that time, was a part of a sovereign, however rotten to the core, state. There are reasons to believe that at the time the population of “moia hata s krayu” (that is neither pro-independence nor pro-Russian) was a dominant, swinging, force in the region, even despite the referendum. The very large number of combat-worthy Donbas males who escaped to Russia testifies to that. This was a legitimate issue then. Obviously, today most of Donbas people hate Ukraine. As per how Russia, if forced, will fight Ukrainian forces is a separate issue, it is not going to be good for Ukrainians, nor will it be good for any external (presumably NATO or US) force which would exercise this suicidal option.

Surely the only difference between Crimea and the eight oblasts of Novorossiya is that the latter were combined with the Ukraine proper in defiance of history and logic in 1917 by the Provisional Government, rather than in 1954 by Khrushchev.

Your description of the events is somewhat skewed (BTW, that is how Colonel Cassad largely interprets them), there couldn't have been any "opportunity" since, unlike Crimea, Donbas, at that time, was a part of a sovereign, however rotten to the core, state. There are reasons to believe that at the time the population of "moia hata s krayu" (that is neither pro-independence nor pro-Russian) was a dominant, swinging, force in the region, even despite the referendum. The very large number of combat-worthy Donbas males who escaped to Russia testifies to that. This was a legitimate issue then. Obviously, today most of Donbas people hate Ukraine. As per how Russia, if forced, will fight Ukrainian forces is a separate issue, it is not going to be good for Ukrainians, nor will it be good for any external (presumably NATO or US) force which would exercise this suicidal option.

Surely the only difference between Crimea and the eight oblasts of Novorossiya is that the latter were combined with the Ukraine proper in defiance of history and logic in 1917 by the Provisional Government, rather than in 1954 by Khrushchev.

Factor of time matters here a great deal. Historical Novorossia's legitimization will take much longer (and will be much bloodier) than Crimea. Crimea never ceased to be de facto Russia (add here Black Sea Fleet), moods in Novorossia, however, even today are very different. Part of it is, of course, Kiev's coercion and propaganda, the other part--a steady dissolution of Russian identity which was happening since late 1980s.

Surely the only difference between Crimea and the eight oblasts of Novorossiya is that the latter were combined with the Ukraine proper in defiance of history and logic in 1917 by the Provisional Government, rather than in 1954 by Khrushchev.

Factor of time matters here a great deal. Historical Novorossia’s legitimization will take much longer (and will be much bloodier) than Crimea. Crimea never ceased to be de facto Russia (add here Black Sea Fleet), moods in Novorossia, however, even today are very different. Part of it is, of course, Kiev’s coercion and propaganda, the other part–a steady dissolution of Russian identity which was happening since late 1980s.

Part of it is, of course, Kiev’s coercion and propaganda, the other part–a steady dissolution of Russian identity which was happening since late 1980s.

If by Novorossiya you mean simply Donbas (and in particular, the urban parts that are now LNR/DNR) - sure. If you mean all the "blue" oblasts that had voted for Yanukovich, other factors such as ethnicity play a large role. Recent events have shown that "blue" voters were not a uniform electorate. Simplistically, they could be divided into two groups. The first group wished to join Russia and viewed the Party of Regions and their Communist allies as an acceptable lesser evil whom they would vote for when given no other viable options. The majority of Crimea's people and large number (perhaps plurality) of Donbas' people fit into this group. The second group valued independence but preferred links to Russia to links to the EU. Russian actions obviously did not disturb the first group, but they have resulted in a backlash against Russia by the second group. They have split the old "blue" electorate.

One of the factors dividing the first from the second group is ethnicity (it isn't language, as both speak mostly Russian). Crimea was about 60% Russian (Sevastopol 95% Russian), southern/eastern parts of Donbas oblasts probably around 50% Russian - but Dnipropetrovsk oblast is 79% Ukrainian. The ethnic Ukrainians of Dnipropetrovsk, unlike those in Kiev, once upon a time would have preferred the CU over the EU but they still wouldn't want their state dismembered or attacked.

Buzina or his translator Kuprianova confused the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes with the lesser decoration that was the Eisernes Kreuz itself. That slight error aside, the remark, like the whole piece, met an entirely acceptable standard of accuracy, and one which with all your years of copying and pasting you have never been able to approach yourself. So you should refrain from slanderously barking at your betters, especially at those who unlike you have already paid a heavy price for their convictions.

Well, it’s obvious why you limit yourself to insults – when you make a claim involving facts, you are obviously wrong:

That slight error aside, the remark, like the whole piece, met an entirely acceptable standard of accuracy,

Buzina: “If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best.”

Relabelling Poles as Ukrainians, and trying to make a Nelson out of a medical officer, just underlines how wrong you are. But then if you possessed any actual knowledge of any topic, rather than just the eagerness to regurgitate the inappropriate products of your inept googling, you would be ashamed to make any of your comments. Nor probably would noxious vermin like you dare to insult a murdered journalist who had more understanding in his little finger than you have in your whole body, if you could claim one ounce of conscience or courage.

Factor of time matters here a great deal. Historical Novorossia's legitimization will take much longer (and will be much bloodier) than Crimea. Crimea never ceased to be de facto Russia (add here Black Sea Fleet), moods in Novorossia, however, even today are very different. Part of it is, of course, Kiev's coercion and propaganda, the other part--a steady dissolution of Russian identity which was happening since late 1980s.

Part of it is, of course, Kiev’s coercion and propaganda, the other part–a steady dissolution of Russian identity which was happening since late 1980s.

If by Novorossiya you mean simply Donbas (and in particular, the urban parts that are now LNR/DNR) – sure. If you mean all the “blue” oblasts that had voted for Yanukovich, other factors such as ethnicity play a large role. Recent events have shown that “blue” voters were not a uniform electorate. Simplistically, they could be divided into two groups. The first group wished to join Russia and viewed the Party of Regions and their Communist allies as an acceptable lesser evil whom they would vote for when given no other viable options. The majority of Crimea’s people and large number (perhaps plurality) of Donbas’ people fit into this group. The second group valued independence but preferred links to Russia to links to the EU. Russian actions obviously did not disturb the first group, but they have resulted in a backlash against Russia by the second group. They have split the old “blue” electorate.

One of the factors dividing the first from the second group is ethnicity (it isn’t language, as both speak mostly Russian). Crimea was about 60% Russian (Sevastopol 95% Russian), southern/eastern parts of Donbas oblasts probably around 50% Russian – but Dnipropetrovsk oblast is 79% Ukrainian. The ethnic Ukrainians of Dnipropetrovsk, unlike those in Kiev, once upon a time would have preferred the CU over the EU but they still wouldn’t want their state dismembered or attacked.

Recent events have shown that “blue” voters were not a uniform electorate.

This was precisely my point. By Spring of 2014 even Donbas was not homogeneous, let alone the rest of "blue" regions. This automatically precluded any military solution and no "opportunity" existed there. Today, things changed.

Part of it is, of course, Kiev’s coercion and propaganda, the other part–a steady dissolution of Russian identity which was happening since late 1980s.

If by Novorossiya you mean simply Donbas (and in particular, the urban parts that are now LNR/DNR) - sure. If you mean all the "blue" oblasts that had voted for Yanukovich, other factors such as ethnicity play a large role. Recent events have shown that "blue" voters were not a uniform electorate. Simplistically, they could be divided into two groups. The first group wished to join Russia and viewed the Party of Regions and their Communist allies as an acceptable lesser evil whom they would vote for when given no other viable options. The majority of Crimea's people and large number (perhaps plurality) of Donbas' people fit into this group. The second group valued independence but preferred links to Russia to links to the EU. Russian actions obviously did not disturb the first group, but they have resulted in a backlash against Russia by the second group. They have split the old "blue" electorate.

One of the factors dividing the first from the second group is ethnicity (it isn't language, as both speak mostly Russian). Crimea was about 60% Russian (Sevastopol 95% Russian), southern/eastern parts of Donbas oblasts probably around 50% Russian - but Dnipropetrovsk oblast is 79% Ukrainian. The ethnic Ukrainians of Dnipropetrovsk, unlike those in Kiev, once upon a time would have preferred the CU over the EU but they still wouldn't want their state dismembered or attacked.

Recent events have shown that “blue” voters were not a uniform electorate.

This was precisely my point. By Spring of 2014 even Donbas was not homogeneous, let alone the rest of “blue” regions. This automatically precluded any military solution and no “opportunity” existed there. Today, things changed.

Yes. Today, places such as Dnipropetrovsk are much further from Russia even than they had been in early 2014. OTOH, Donbas is much further from Kiev than it had been* and would probably want to join Russia. The battlelines roughly correspond to this reality.

*About 10% of Donbas voters used to choose "Orange" parties in elections; polls consistently used to show plurality support for federation rather than annexation; I doubt any of this is true today

Relabelling Poles as Ukrainians, and trying to make a Nelson out of a medical officer, just underlines how wrong you are. But then if you possessed any actual knowledge of any topic, rather than just the eagerness to regurgitate the inappropriate products of your inept googling, you would be ashamed to make any of your comments. Nor probably would noxious vermin like you dare to insult a murdered journalist who had more understanding in his little finger than you have in your whole body, if you could claim one ounce of conscience or courage.

Relabelling Poles as Ukrainians, and trying to make a Nelson out of a medical officer, just underlines how wrong you are.

Neither Field Marshal Shashkevich nor Major General Josef Witoszynski von Dobrawola were Poles. The latter guy was actually a commander of the Ukrainian Galician Army who led forces fighting against Poland. Hint: spelling names in Latin script doesn't indicate ethnicity. Maybe you think the Russian Romanowicz dynasty were Poles also?

dare to insult a murdered journalist who had more understanding in his little finger

That day when huge Russian military columns rolled towards the border and were stopped at the last moment was April 24th of 2004. At that time the Ukrainian army was many times weaker than it is now. I've read an interview with Turchinov, the junta's leader at the time, where he said that in the beginning the Ukraine had only 3,000 troops at the ready, i.e. not on paper but in real life, ready to fight.

Half of the Ukraine could have been liberated with almost no bloodhed. Only one person died during the Crimean operation. That could have been repeated across south-eastern Ukraine. Tens of thousands of lives would have been saved.

Most of the serious military equipment that the Ukraine inherited from the Soviet Union was either stolen or lay rotting. The Ukrainian state itself was a rotten carcass, totally looted-out by the sort of people that the Western media calls democratic reformers. The civilian parts of it are still rotten, but during the year that has passed Western advisors, Western money, Eastern European arms supplies and difficult experiences strengthened the Ukrainian army.

That historical moment, April of 2014, when the child-killing scum of the Kiev junta could have been sweapt away without bloodshed, is gone forever. The legitimate president of the Ukraine was in Russia, eager to cooperate. His term hadn't run out yet. Why was that opportunity squandered by the Kremlin, why did all of those people have to die in the Donbass? These are important questions.

As for your theory, i.e. the Kremlin's concerns about Western public opinion, no matter what the Kremlin does, it will be painted in the darkest colors imaginable in the Western media. There does not have to be any connection between reality and propaganda. So it probably makes no sense for Russia, China, Iran, etc. to consider the impact of their actions on the picture put out by the Western media.

All I know is the state department wanted him to invade so bad they pretended he already had done about a dozen times – so maybe that’s why he didn’t.

Oleksander Shashkevich, brother of Markian Shashkevich (first Galician to try to popularize the spoken Ukrainian language); Austrian field-marshal, commander of 12th infantry division, and for his work in reforming the military was awarded membership in the Imperial Austrian Order of Leopold.

Anatoly, can this and my other post simply be added to my first one? I miss the edit function of disqus.

As far as I know they encouraged all ethnicities to enter the military profession and to loyally serve the dynasty. For example I think Austria-Hungary had the highest percentage of Jewish generals in the First World War. I’d be surprised if they didn’t encourage Ukrainians to serve (and eventually reach the highest ranks) as well.

As far as I know they encouraged all ethnicities to enter the military profession and to loyally serve the dynasty. For example I think Austria-Hungary had the highest percentage of Jewish generals in the First World War. I'd be surprised if they didn't encourage Ukrainians to serve (and eventually reach the highest ranks) as well.

You are correct. My point was to highlight that Buzina’s claim that there were no Galician Ukrainians beyond junior rank officers within the A-H military was total nonsense.

This is a fully deserved answer to your petty and malicious posts: "slanderously barking at your betters, especially at those who unlike you have already paid a heavy price for their convictions."Buzina was a principled and courageous man. These qualifications seem to be unbearable for you.

Relabelling Poles as Ukrainians, and trying to make a Nelson out of a medical officer, just underlines how wrong you are. But then if you possessed any actual knowledge of any topic, rather than just the eagerness to regurgitate the inappropriate products of your inept googling, you would be ashamed to make any of your comments. Nor probably would noxious vermin like you dare to insult a murdered journalist who had more understanding in his little finger than you have in your whole body, if you could claim one ounce of conscience or courage.

Relabelling Poles as Ukrainians, and trying to make a Nelson out of a medical officer, just underlines how wrong you are.

Neither Field Marshal Shashkevich nor Major General Josef Witoszynski von Dobrawola were Poles. The latter guy was actually a commander of the Ukrainian Galician Army who led forces fighting against Poland. Hint: spelling names in Latin script doesn’t indicate ethnicity. Maybe you think the Russian Romanowicz dynasty were Poles also?

dare to insult a murdered journalist who had more understanding in his little finger

Stop pretending that you know anything about these people other than that you googled them five minutes ago, you aren't fooling anyone. If you had the least bit of actual historical knowledge, you would be aware that just as Anglo-Irish people could embrace Irish nationalism without being Catholic or ethnically Irish, the same holds of Poles in Galicia and Volhynia.

Recent events have shown that “blue” voters were not a uniform electorate.

This was precisely my point. By Spring of 2014 even Donbas was not homogeneous, let alone the rest of "blue" regions. This automatically precluded any military solution and no "opportunity" existed there. Today, things changed.

Yes. Today, places such as Dnipropetrovsk are much further from Russia even than they had been in early 2014. OTOH, Donbas is much further from Kiev than it had been* and would probably want to join Russia. The battlelines roughly correspond to this reality.

*About 10% of Donbas voters used to choose “Orange” parties in elections; polls consistently used to show plurality support for federation rather than annexation; I doubt any of this is true today

Relabelling Poles as Ukrainians, and trying to make a Nelson out of a medical officer, just underlines how wrong you are.

Neither Field Marshal Shashkevich nor Major General Josef Witoszynski von Dobrawola were Poles. The latter guy was actually a commander of the Ukrainian Galician Army who led forces fighting against Poland. Hint: spelling names in Latin script doesn't indicate ethnicity. Maybe you think the Russian Romanowicz dynasty were Poles also?

dare to insult a murdered journalist who had more understanding in his little finger

Relabelling Poles as Ukrainians, and trying to make a Nelson out of a medical officer, just underlines how wrong you are.

Neither Field Marshal Shashkevich nor Major General Josef Witoszynski von Dobrawola were Poles. The latter guy was actually a commander of the Ukrainian Galician Army who led forces fighting against Poland. Hint: spelling names in Latin script doesn't indicate ethnicity. Maybe you think the Russian Romanowicz dynasty were Poles also?

dare to insult a murdered journalist who had more understanding in his little finger

Being murdered does not make an uniformed idiot, intelligent.

Stop pretending that you know anything about these people other than that you googled them five minutes ago, you aren’t fooling anyone. If you had the least bit of actual historical knowledge, you would be aware that just as Anglo-Irish people could embrace Irish nationalism without being Catholic or ethnically Irish, the same holds of Poles in Galicia and Volhynia.

If you had the least bit of actual historical knowledge, you would be aware that just as Anglo-Irish people could embrace Irish nationalism without being Catholic or ethnically Irish,

We aren’t discussing Ireland. Some Poles in the Russian Empire (such as Hrushevsky’s teacher Antonovych) embraced Ukrainian nationalism, where Russians were viewed as a mutual enemy by both Ukrainian and Polish nationalists. But not in Galicia where Poles and Ukrainians were in hostile competition. Could you name a single Galician Pole who embraced Ukrainian nationalism?

Anyways, you have no evidence that either Field Marshal Shashkevich (whose family was full of Uniate priests and whose relative was the first guy who promoted Ukrainian vernacular as a medium for literature in Ukraine) nor Major General Witoszynski von Dobrawola (who led Ukrainian forces against Poland) were somehow ethnic Poles. It’s just your empty claim, the claim of an idiot-troll.

So in Galicia, there was at least 1 Ukrainian rear admiral, one field marshal, and one major general. In contrast to Buzina’s claim that “If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best. ”

So we know Buzina was wrong about that. He was also wrong about no Galician ever getting an Iron Cross. Another Buzina claim:

Not only the commanders of Galicia Division were German, but also the entire headquarters and the vast majority of officers all the way to the company members.

“Vast majority” is not a precise figure. I don’t have a listing of all officers in the entire division, but here is the list of officers from the Division’s Feb. 1943 partisian-fighting Kampfgruppe Beyersdorff that consisted of one infantry battalion, one light artillery battery (6 artillery pieces), one platoon of pioneers, one anti-tank platoon, a communication section, one supply section and a cavalry reconnaissance unit:

Setting aside the veterinarian and the chaplain, this makes 3 German and 6 Ukrainian officers, with the German being in charge. I’m not sure about the rest of the Division, but given Buzina’s lack of reality in his other claims, I suspect the claim he makes of “vast majority” of officers being German is also B.S. (I know you won’t provide any counterexamples, 5371, you’ll just repeat empty claims and insults as usual, I’m posting this for other readers’ benefit).

Done some more googling, eh? You seem to be as enraptured about your newly-discovered ability to do that as a toddler is about grabbing himself by the genitals.
I couldn't help but notice that you carefully avoided addressing Buzina's point about the Ritterkreuz. It was awarded to many SS volunteers from France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Baltic states, including non-officers, but never to a single Ukrainian. In other words, either the Ukrainians all lacked any of the military qualities those other nations possessed, or he was right that the Germans treated them as second-class troops. Which is it? And if the latter, when will you stop slandering your betters?

If you had the least bit of actual historical knowledge, you would be aware that just as Anglo-Irish people could embrace Irish nationalism without being Catholic or ethnically Irish,

We aren't discussing Ireland. Some Poles in the Russian Empire (such as Hrushevsky's teacher Antonovych) embraced Ukrainian nationalism, where Russians were viewed as a mutual enemy by both Ukrainian and Polish nationalists. But not in Galicia where Poles and Ukrainians were in hostile competition. Could you name a single Galician Pole who embraced Ukrainian nationalism?

Anyways, you have no evidence that either Field Marshal Shashkevich (whose family was full of Uniate priests and whose relative was the first guy who promoted Ukrainian vernacular as a medium for literature in Ukraine) nor Major General Witoszynski von Dobrawola (who led Ukrainian forces against Poland) were somehow ethnic Poles. It's just your empty claim, the claim of an idiot-troll.

So in Galicia, there was at least 1 Ukrainian rear admiral, one field marshal, and one major general. In contrast to Buzina's claim that "If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best. "

So we know Buzina was wrong about that. He was also wrong about no Galician ever getting an Iron Cross. Another Buzina claim:

Not only the commanders of Galicia Division were German, but also the entire headquarters and the vast majority of officers all the way to the company members.

"Vast majority" is not a precise figure. I don't have a listing of all officers in the entire division, but here is the list of officers from the Division's Feb. 1943 partisian-fighting Kampfgruppe Beyersdorff that consisted of one infantry battalion, one light artillery battery (6 artillery pieces), one platoon of pioneers, one anti-tank platoon, a communication section, one supply section and a cavalry reconnaissance unit:

Setting aside the veterinarian and the chaplain, this makes 3 German and 6 Ukrainian officers, with the German being in charge. I'm not sure about the rest of the Division, but given Buzina's lack of reality in his other claims, I suspect the claim he makes of "vast majority" of officers being German is also B.S. (I know you won't provide any counterexamples, 5371, you'll just repeat empty claims and insults as usual, I'm posting this for other readers' benefit).

Done some more googling, eh? You seem to be as enraptured about your newly-discovered ability to do that as a toddler is about grabbing himself by the genitals.
I couldn’t help but notice that you carefully avoided addressing Buzina’s point about the Ritterkreuz. It was awarded to many SS volunteers from France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Baltic states, including non-officers, but never to a single Ukrainian. In other words, either the Ukrainians all lacked any of the military qualities those other nations possessed, or he was right that the Germans treated them as second-class troops. Which is it? And if the latter, when will you stop slandering your betters?

I couldn’t help but notice that you carefully avoided addressing Buzina’s point about the Ritterkreuz.

Buzina mentioned an Iron Cross. He wrote: "German command valued the military qualities of SS Galicia very little. For example, only one of its members was awarded the Iron Cross—Commander Freitag himself—whereas these awards were not uncommon in other Waffen-SS divisions."

As for the Ritterkreuz - it was awarded over about 450 Waffen-SS members - the Waffen-SS had a peak total of about 1 million soldiers. So, it was hardly common. There may have been a rule about not giving it to Slavs.

Yes. Today, places such as Dnipropetrovsk are much further from Russia even than they had been in early 2014. OTOH, Donbas is much further from Kiev than it had been* and would probably want to join Russia. The battlelines roughly correspond to this reality.

*About 10% of Donbas voters used to choose "Orange" parties in elections; polls consistently used to show plurality support for federation rather than annexation; I doubt any of this is true today

The battlelines roughly correspond to this reality.

No. That is the wrong assessment. In fact, not even close. The dynamics in the South of Ukraine is very peculiar and this is not good news for Kiev. I, however, do agree on Dnepropetrovsk.

There are certainly differences within regions, with Dnipropetrovsk and the south-central coast being most pro-Kiev now, Odessa being about evenly divided and Kharkiv being pro-Russian (though not nearly as much as Donbas). Not coincidentally, these differences correspond to ethnic self-identification.

(in contrast, Crimea was about 60% ethnic Russian, and while Donbas and Luhansk oblasts were about 55-58% ethnic Ukrainian, the southern urban parts of those oblasts which are under DNR/LNR control were about 50% Russian)

Evenly-divided Odessa is separated from Crimea and Donbas by unambiguously pro-Kiev Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk; this leaves Kharkiv as the most viable target. But even Kharkiv is no Donbas.

The front does seem to separate the clearly pro-Russian areas from the rest of Ukraine.

Here is a map of Luhansk oblast showing the front line (in blue) and terms of self-identified Ukrainian as native language. It almost seems planned - the front more-or-less neatly separates Ukrainian from Russian areas, while cutting through Russian-inhabited territories, thus sparing Luhansk's ethnic Ukrainians the misery of living in a warzone:

Done some more googling, eh? You seem to be as enraptured about your newly-discovered ability to do that as a toddler is about grabbing himself by the genitals.
I couldn't help but notice that you carefully avoided addressing Buzina's point about the Ritterkreuz. It was awarded to many SS volunteers from France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Baltic states, including non-officers, but never to a single Ukrainian. In other words, either the Ukrainians all lacked any of the military qualities those other nations possessed, or he was right that the Germans treated them as second-class troops. Which is it? And if the latter, when will you stop slandering your betters?

You seem to be as enraptured about your newly-discovered ability to do that as a toddler is about grabbing himself by the genitals.

I couldn’t help but notice that you carefully avoided addressing Buzina’s point about the Ritterkreuz.

Buzina mentioned an Iron Cross. He wrote: “German command valued the military qualities of SS Galicia very little. For example, only one of its members was awarded the Iron Cross—Commander Freitag himself—whereas these awards were not uncommon in other Waffen-SS divisions.”

As for the Ritterkreuz – it was awarded over about 450 Waffen-SS members – the Waffen-SS had a peak total of about 1 million soldiers. So, it was hardly common. There may have been a rule about not giving it to Slavs.

I think it's clear the division Galicia wasn't an elite division, it was probably given neither adequate training nor adequate weaponry, and I guess the Nazis weren't too eager to provide either. I'd also question the quality and enthusiasm of the volunteers. As far as I know, they were mostly sent against partisans, and probably they were brutal against both partisans and civilians suspected of supporting partisans (though I also read that pro-Soviet and other partisans were just as brutal with pro-German militiamen and their family members), and such acts of brutality tend to break down morals and discipline anyway. I think the kind of people who tend to volunteer for an occupying army is somewhat different from the kind of people who volunteer for an elite unit of their own country. Anyway, the division Galicia was not a very high quality division. Truth be told, the Waffen-SS had many similar divisions, of its 38 divisions probably just a dozen were higher quality than the average Wehrmacht division (and probably just around six or eight truly elite), the rest were usually low quality units.

I couldn’t help but notice that you carefully avoided addressing Buzina’s point about the Ritterkreuz.

Buzina mentioned an Iron Cross. He wrote: "German command valued the military qualities of SS Galicia very little. For example, only one of its members was awarded the Iron Cross—Commander Freitag himself—whereas these awards were not uncommon in other Waffen-SS divisions."

As for the Ritterkreuz - it was awarded over about 450 Waffen-SS members - the Waffen-SS had a peak total of about 1 million soldiers. So, it was hardly common. There may have been a rule about not giving it to Slavs.

So, Buzina was right, and you hastened like the cowardly jackal you are to slander the man your friends murdered. Where’s your apology?

He was wrong about “For example, only one of its members was awarded the Iron Cross—Commander Freitag himself” — and if meant to say the Knight’s Cross, he was wrong about “these awards were not uncommon in other Waffen-SS divisions.” 450 awards distributed among 1 million Waffen SS members is not common.

He was also wrong about no Galician Ukrainian field marshals or generals, he was wrong about “vast majority of officers” being Germans. The only thing he got right was that the commanders of the 14th Waffen-SS Division were all Germans. So the ratio of b.s. to actual facts is quite high and he is worthless as a source of info. He comes across as a troll, essentially.

No. That is the wrong assessment. In fact, not even close. The dynamics in the South of Ukraine is very peculiar and this is not good news for Kiev. I, however, do agree on Dnepropetrovsk.

There are certainly differences within regions, with Dnipropetrovsk and the south-central coast being most pro-Kiev now, Odessa being about evenly divided and Kharkiv being pro-Russian (though not nearly as much as Donbas). Not coincidentally, these differences correspond to ethnic self-identification.

(in contrast, Crimea was about 60% ethnic Russian, and while Donbas and Luhansk oblasts were about 55-58% ethnic Ukrainian, the southern urban parts of those oblasts which are under DNR/LNR control were about 50% Russian)

Evenly-divided Odessa is separated from Crimea and Donbas by unambiguously pro-Kiev Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk; this leaves Kharkiv as the most viable target. But even Kharkiv is no Donbas.

The front does seem to separate the clearly pro-Russian areas from the rest of Ukraine.

Here is a map of Luhansk oblast showing the front line (in blue) and terms of self-identified Ukrainian as native language. It almost seems planned – the front more-or-less neatly separates Ukrainian from Russian areas, while cutting through Russian-inhabited territories, thus sparing Luhansk’s ethnic Ukrainians the misery of living in a warzone:

He was wrong about "For example, only one of its members was awarded the Iron Cross—Commander Freitag himself" — and if meant to say the Knight's Cross, he was wrong about "these awards were not uncommon in other Waffen-SS divisions." 450 awards distributed among 1 million Waffen SS members is not common.

He was also wrong about no Galician Ukrainian field marshals or generals, he was wrong about "vast majority of officers" being Germans. The only thing he got right was that the commanders of the 14th Waffen-SS Division were all Germans. So the ratio of b.s. to actual facts is quite high and he is worthless as a source of info. He comes across as a troll, essentially.

When can we look forward to your doing what he did and living openly under a terrorist regime which looked on him as a public enemy, sockpuppetteering Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V warrior?

He was wrong about "For example, only one of its members was awarded the Iron Cross—Commander Freitag himself" — and if meant to say the Knight's Cross, he was wrong about "these awards were not uncommon in other Waffen-SS divisions." 450 awards distributed among 1 million Waffen SS members is not common.

He was also wrong about no Galician Ukrainian field marshals or generals, he was wrong about "vast majority of officers" being Germans. The only thing he got right was that the commanders of the 14th Waffen-SS Division were all Germans. So the ratio of b.s. to actual facts is quite high and he is worthless as a source of info. He comes across as a troll, essentially.

The details themselves are not very important; their importance is that they show that the martyred Buzina was either very ignorant or a liar. His notability is for being the victim of a brutal crime. Otherwise, fairly useless.

I couldn’t help but notice that you carefully avoided addressing Buzina’s point about the Ritterkreuz.

Buzina mentioned an Iron Cross. He wrote: "German command valued the military qualities of SS Galicia very little. For example, only one of its members was awarded the Iron Cross—Commander Freitag himself—whereas these awards were not uncommon in other Waffen-SS divisions."

As for the Ritterkreuz - it was awarded over about 450 Waffen-SS members - the Waffen-SS had a peak total of about 1 million soldiers. So, it was hardly common. There may have been a rule about not giving it to Slavs.

I think it’s clear the division Galicia wasn’t an elite division, it was probably given neither adequate training nor adequate weaponry, and I guess the Nazis weren’t too eager to provide either. I’d also question the quality and enthusiasm of the volunteers. As far as I know, they were mostly sent against partisans, and probably they were brutal against both partisans and civilians suspected of supporting partisans (though I also read that pro-Soviet and other partisans were just as brutal with pro-German militiamen and their family members), and such acts of brutality tend to break down morals and discipline anyway. I think the kind of people who tend to volunteer for an occupying army is somewhat different from the kind of people who volunteer for an elite unit of their own country. Anyway, the division Galicia was not a very high quality division. Truth be told, the Waffen-SS had many similar divisions, of its 38 divisions probably just a dozen were higher quality than the average Wehrmacht division (and probably just around six or eight truly elite), the rest were usually low quality units.

The details themselves are not very important; their importance is that they show that the martyred Buzina was either very ignorant or a liar. His notability is for being the victim of a brutal crime. Otherwise, fairly useless.

No, you are far more ignorant than he is, even taking you at face value - and that would be very unwise, because your face value at any given time, unlike his, is derived from use of a search engine in the preceding five minutes.

On or around the weekend of 16 May, 2015, Eric G. Wintemute, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer at American Vanguard Corporation, met with senior policymakers in Washington. The meeting was attended by Lieutenant General John F. Mulholland, the Associate Director of Military Affairs at the CIA since January of this year. In the words of other guests who were present at the meeting, Mulholland told Wintemute that everything should be done to draw Russia in the war with Ukraine. [Read the rest here ].

Col. Lang (U.S.A., ret.), a highly-regarded retired senior military intelligence officer and director at DIA worries about Bear-baiting quickly going wrong, fast. As Col Lang says in one of his blog replies:

We’re not talking the “Guns of August” here. The Schlieffen Plan and/or Fall Gelb are gone forever. Mass armies will not be mobilized. Economies will not be re-configured. No, what would happen would be a small scale incident that leads to a larger incident and so forth up the escalatory ladder until the logic of escalation and threats leads to first a small nuclear use and eventually a full scale exchange that ends civilization as we know it, even what passes for civilization in Texas. All of that would occur with existing forces, forces that exist NOW! pl

The kind of leaders thrown up in situations like the Donbass are often very charismatic and hence potentially dangerous to the current elite. I'm glad Strelkov got out before he was topped as I like him (and he lives to maybe fight another day).

.

Disagree absolutely on the casualty figures.

In the early fighting it was clear from the various side's videos that the Ukraine forces had very large numbers of armored vehicles full of young boys that moved in columns along wooded roads into ambushes set up by much smaller numbers of much older and *much, much* harder men driving around in work vans painted camouflage and loaded with copious supplies of light anti-tank weapons. I think Kiev sent huge numbers of those boys to burn to death inside those vehicles along those roads and in the endless series of cauldrons their commanders blindly drove into.

I agree that since the NAF switched to being more on the offensive the casualty rates are likely to have evened out but the total will still be heavily skewed to the Ukraine side from those early days imo.

.

Glossy

"A Russian march to Kiev or to the Dnepr or to the administrative borders of the regions that voted for Yanukovich for president would have been a more negative outcome for the neocons than just a referendum in the Crimea."

I think it's to do with Western public opinion.

The powers that be have been trying to spin the Putin = Hitler 2.0 line to whip up some so far very lukewarm public enthusiasm for WWIII and so have been trying to provoke Putin into actions that fit that narrative i.e. columns of tanks moving into Ukraine, hence the 20? 30? 40? occasions the state department or media have cried wolf over those so far non-existent columns.

(Putin could be bolder in the Crimea because the soldiers were already there and all they had to do was stand outside their barracks.)

Whether holding back the tank columns was the right decision or not I don't know. I think it was the right decision on the grand scale because it made the state department look utterly ridiculous in front of the whole world which I think did serious damage to US standing. On the other hand "betraying" (at least temporarily) the Donbass fighters may have caused damage that will hurt in the longer term. It's hard to say for sure yet.

The casualty figures are roughly 1 : 3 in NAF favour and sometimes even higher. The NAF is significantly smaller compared to the UAF. If the figures were equal the NAF would’ve been wiped out by now.

The details themselves are not very important; their importance is that they show that the martyred Buzina was either very ignorant or a liar. His notability is for being the victim of a brutal crime. Otherwise, fairly useless.

No, you are far more ignorant than he is, even taking you at face value – and that would be very unwise, because your face value at any given time, unlike his, is derived from use of a search engine in the preceding five minutes.

No, you are far more ignorant than he is, even taking you at face value - and that would be very unwise, because your face value at any given time, unlike his, is derived from use of a search engine in the preceding five minutes.

Could you please just point out things that AP posts that are untrue instead of the constant “hurr durr google” arguments?

You clearly haven't been paying attention - unless you are yet another identity of the prolific sockpuppetteer ''AP'', of course. If you had, you would have noticed that Buzina's claim that ethnic Ukrainians were neither prominent within the k.u.k. armed forces, nor respected in the Waffen-SS, has been vindicated.

No, you are far more ignorant than he is, even taking you at face value - and that would be very unwise, because your face value at any given time, unlike his, is derived from use of a search engine in the preceding five minutes.

You seem to be upset that it takes 5 minutes or less on google to demolish Buzina’s claims.

Could you please just point out things that AP posts that are untrue instead of the constant "hurr durr google" arguments?

You clearly haven’t been paying attention – unless you are yet another identity of the prolific sockpuppetteer ”AP”, of course. If you had, you would have noticed that Buzina’s claim that ethnic Ukrainians were neither prominent within the k.u.k. armed forces, nor respected in the Waffen-SS, has been vindicated.

You would have noticed that Buzina’s claim that ethnic Ukrainians were neither prominent within the k.u.k. armed forces,

But he didn't claim just that (and how prominent could they be - there were only about 3 million of them). He claimed "If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best" which was a proven lie, and one of very many.

The Americans would have picked-up and identified the radar emissions of the BUK/SA-11 system.

They spend a vast amount on satellite, ground and airborne ELINT systems to maintain an up to date real-time global Electronic ORBAT. If a Russian BUK was used they would have its complete deployment history. And they would immediately have announced this smoking gun.

Some Pentagon spokesman would have gleefully announced that the system used had last emitted in (say) Rostov on such-and-such a date and had moved there from Kaluga on such-and-such a date etc

But the Pentagon are saying … NOTHING. And I haven’t seen this rather obvious point reported in the English language media.

The conclusion I draw is that the BUK used was operated by the Ukrainians.

You clearly haven't been paying attention - unless you are yet another identity of the prolific sockpuppetteer ''AP'', of course. If you had, you would have noticed that Buzina's claim that ethnic Ukrainians were neither prominent within the k.u.k. armed forces, nor respected in the Waffen-SS, has been vindicated.

You would have noticed that Buzina’s claim that ethnic Ukrainians were neither prominent within the k.u.k. armed forces,

But he didn’t claim just that (and how prominent could they be – there were only about 3 million of them). He claimed “If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best” which was a proven lie, and one of very many.

There were almost five million Ukrainian language speakers in Austria-Hungary by wartime, as against about two million Croats. Which of those ethnic groups was more prominent in the armed forces, and was it even a close-run thing? Your quibbles only make Buzina's rightness stand out still more clearly.

So far you have identified three Ukrainians in Austrian Army. One was an admiral, the other was a retired colonel who was called back to duty during WWI and made General specifically to command an Ukrainian unit. And the third individual rose all the way to...major.

Sorry, but this does nothing to invalidate Buzina's main point, which, by the way, he is making over and over and over again throughout his work, using many examples. And the point is this. In Russia, the Ukrainians weren't just a minority lorded over by the Russians. They were equal proprietors of the Russian state, both of the Russian Empire and of the USSR. They were almost always well represented--and often over-represented--among the highest tiers of the military, government bureaucracy, Tsarist nobility, Communist nomenklatura, what have you. Whatever Russia's achievements or failures - the Ukrainians (says Buzina) own equal share of that.

Incidentally, Buzina was taken to court eleven times on the accusation of lying in his writing. Every case was dismissed because he was able to prove his statements to be true. You are not the first to accuse him of lying and you are just as wrong.

You would have noticed that Buzina’s claim that ethnic Ukrainians were neither prominent within the k.u.k. armed forces,

But he didn't claim just that (and how prominent could they be - there were only about 3 million of them). He claimed "If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best" which was a proven lie, and one of very many.

There were almost five million Ukrainian language speakers in Austria-Hungary by wartime, as against about two million Croats. Which of those ethnic groups was more prominent in the armed forces, and was it even a close-run thing? Your quibbles only make Buzina’s rightness stand out still more clearly.

You would have noticed that Buzina’s claim that ethnic Ukrainians were neither prominent within the k.u.k. armed forces,

But he didn't claim just that (and how prominent could they be - there were only about 3 million of them). He claimed "If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best" which was a proven lie, and one of very many.

So far you have identified three Ukrainians in Austrian Army. One was an admiral, the other was a retired colonel who was called back to duty during WWI and made General specifically to command an Ukrainian unit. And the third individual rose all the way to…major.

Sorry, but this does nothing to invalidate Buzina’s main point, which, by the way, he is making over and over and over again throughout his work, using many examples. And the point is this. In Russia, the Ukrainians weren’t just a minority lorded over by the Russians. They were equal proprietors of the Russian state, both of the Russian Empire and of the USSR. They were almost always well represented–and often over-represented–among the highest tiers of the military, government bureaucracy, Tsarist nobility, Communist nomenklatura, what have you. Whatever Russia’s achievements or failures – the Ukrainians (says Buzina) own equal share of that.

Incidentally, Buzina was taken to court eleven times on the accusation of lying in his writing. Every case was dismissed because he was able to prove his statements to be true. You are not the first to accuse him of lying and you are just as wrong.

Sorry, but this does nothing to invalidate Buzina’s main point, which, by the way, he is making over and over and over again throughout his work, using many examples.

A "main point" supported by a bunch of lies.

And the point is this. In Russia, the Ukrainians weren’t just a minority lorded over by the Russians. They were equal proprietors of the Russian state, both of the Russian Empire and of the USSR.

The main point (at least in the excerpts here) was to present a negative picture of Galicians and their situation. Writing about Galicians doesn't prove anything about Ukrainians being equal proprietors of the Russian Empire. He seems to be bitter that the Galicians defeated the Sovoks for the heart of Ukraine.

As for your statement - sure, to a point. Ukrainians had the option of being "Russians" and those doing so who were also nobles had no problems. Incidentally, Ukrainians enjoyed a similar relationship with Poland. Indeed, there was one Ukrainian king of Poland (half-Ukrainian, at least) - but no Ukrainian Tsar of Russia. Nor Ukrainian leader of the USSR.

Galician Ukrainians were a fraction of Austria-Hungary's population so of course they were mostly inconsequential within that empire. But if the implication was that they were worse off - well, their serfdom was abolished a generation earlier, they enjoyed full literacy of schoolkids a generation earlier, and although Galicia was the poorest province in Austria (tied with Dalmatia) it was still richer per capita than the Russian Empire.

Incidentally, Buzina was taken to court eleven times on the accusation of lying in his writing. Every case was dismissed because he was able to prove his statements to be true.

Under Yanukovich courts?

You are not the first to accuse him of lying and you are just as wrong.

The proof of his being wrong is provided. He claimed no Ukrainian went above junior officer rank. The reality was one admiral, one general, one field marshal. So he was lying and I am not wrong.

There were almost five million Ukrainian language speakers in Austria-Hungary

Not, it was just under 4 million. You and Buzina have a similar relationship to facts.

Plus of course, Buzina was writing about Galicians specifically, not “Ukrainian speakers” in the entire empire. There were only about 3 million Galician Ukrainians.

as against about two million Croats. Which of those ethnic groups was more prominent in the armed forces, and was it even a close-run thing?

Croatia was integrated with Austria and Austria-Hungary for centuries longer than Galicia was. The Galician-Ukrainian field marshal, admiral and major general were all from the late 19th century/early 20th centuries.

Your quibbles only make Buzina’s rightness stand out still more clearly.

Only if by “rightness” you mean getting most of his facts completely wrong.

As usual, having been caught with your pants down you hasten to remove your underpants. You have forgotten about the Ukrainians in Bukovina and the Hungarian kingdom, or rather you didn't remember to google about them. And Buzina, I and you yourself were all writing about the Ukrainians of Austria-Hungary in general. It's right there in the previous comments, there's no point in denying it.

There were almost five million Ukrainian language speakers in Austria-Hungary

Not, it was just under 4 million. You and Buzina have a similar relationship to facts.

Plus of course, Buzina was writing about Galicians specifically, not "Ukrainian speakers" in the entire empire. There were only about 3 million Galician Ukrainians.

as against about two million Croats. Which of those ethnic groups was more prominent in the armed forces, and was it even a close-run thing?

Croatia was integrated with Austria and Austria-Hungary for centuries longer than Galicia was. The Galician-Ukrainian field marshal, admiral and major general were all from the late 19th century/early 20th centuries.

Your quibbles only make Buzina’s rightness stand out still more clearly.

Only if by "rightness" you mean getting most of his facts completely wrong.

As usual, having been caught with your pants down you hasten to remove your underpants. You have forgotten about the Ukrainians in Bukovina and the Hungarian kingdom, or rather you didn’t remember to google about them. And Buzina, I and you yourself were all writing about the Ukrainians of Austria-Hungary in general. It’s right there in the previous comments, there’s no point in denying it.

You have forgotten about the Ukrainians in Bukovina and the Hungarian kingdom

I didn't forget them, otherwise I wouldn't have pointed out that Buzina was writing only about the Galicians who numbered about 3 million out of the total 4 million (not 5 million as you claimed) Ukrainian speakers.

Buzina wasn't writing about the others, but about Galicians specifically. He doesn't seem to hate the more Russia-friendly people from Transcarpathia in the Hungarian kingdom, nor the Orthodox Bukovynans. Here is Buzina. I bolded the relevant parts so you can read them more easily:

Like the Austrians during the Habsburg days, Germans did not place much value in the Galicians as war material. If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best. An Austrian, Hungarian, or a Croatian native could have a brilliant military career in the Habsburg Empire, but not Galicians .

So far you have identified three Ukrainians in Austrian Army. One was an admiral, the other was a retired colonel who was called back to duty during WWI and made General specifically to command an Ukrainian unit. And the third individual rose all the way to...major.

Sorry, but this does nothing to invalidate Buzina's main point, which, by the way, he is making over and over and over again throughout his work, using many examples. And the point is this. In Russia, the Ukrainians weren't just a minority lorded over by the Russians. They were equal proprietors of the Russian state, both of the Russian Empire and of the USSR. They were almost always well represented--and often over-represented--among the highest tiers of the military, government bureaucracy, Tsarist nobility, Communist nomenklatura, what have you. Whatever Russia's achievements or failures - the Ukrainians (says Buzina) own equal share of that.

Incidentally, Buzina was taken to court eleven times on the accusation of lying in his writing. Every case was dismissed because he was able to prove his statements to be true. You are not the first to accuse him of lying and you are just as wrong.

And the third individual rose all the way to…major.

You must have read as far as his father Anton, who retired as a major.

The son Oleksandr Sashkevich became major general in 1900 and field marshal in 1907:

Sorry, but this does nothing to invalidate Buzina’s main point, which, by the way, he is making over and over and over again throughout his work, using many examples.

A “main point” supported by a bunch of lies.

And the point is this. In Russia, the Ukrainians weren’t just a minority lorded over by the Russians. They were equal proprietors of the Russian state, both of the Russian Empire and of the USSR.

The main point (at least in the excerpts here) was to present a negative picture of Galicians and their situation. Writing about Galicians doesn’t prove anything about Ukrainians being equal proprietors of the Russian Empire. He seems to be bitter that the Galicians defeated the Sovoks for the heart of Ukraine.

As for your statement – sure, to a point. Ukrainians had the option of being “Russians” and those doing so who were also nobles had no problems. Incidentally, Ukrainians enjoyed a similar relationship with Poland. Indeed, there was one Ukrainian king of Poland (half-Ukrainian, at least) – but no Ukrainian Tsar of Russia. Nor Ukrainian leader of the USSR.

Galician Ukrainians were a fraction of Austria-Hungary’s population so of course they were mostly inconsequential within that empire. But if the implication was that they were worse off – well, their serfdom was abolished a generation earlier, they enjoyed full literacy of schoolkids a generation earlier, and although Galicia was the poorest province in Austria (tied with Dalmatia) it was still richer per capita than the Russian Empire.

Incidentally, Buzina was taken to court eleven times on the accusation of lying in his writing. Every case was dismissed because he was able to prove his statements to be true.

Under Yanukovich courts?

You are not the first to accuse him of lying and you are just as wrong.

The proof of his being wrong is provided. He claimed no Ukrainian went above junior officer rank. The reality was one admiral, one general, one field marshal. So he was lying and I am not wrong.

So the period from 1848 to 1861 counts as a "generation"? The things one learns from svidomites.At least you admit that Khrushchev (lived in Donetsk since childhood) and Brezhnev (born and raised in Dnepropetrovsk) had nothing to do with ''Ukraine".[He seems to be bitter that the Galicians defeated the Sovoks for the heart of Ukraine.]Things composed of two incompatible halves don't have hearts.

As usual, having been caught with your pants down you hasten to remove your underpants. You have forgotten about the Ukrainians in Bukovina and the Hungarian kingdom, or rather you didn't remember to google about them. And Buzina, I and you yourself were all writing about the Ukrainians of Austria-Hungary in general. It's right there in the previous comments, there's no point in denying it.

You have forgotten about the Ukrainians in Bukovina and the Hungarian kingdom

I didn’t forget them, otherwise I wouldn’t have pointed out that Buzina was writing only about the Galicians who numbered about 3 million out of the total 4 million (not 5 million as you claimed) Ukrainian speakers.

Buzina wasn’t writing about the others, but about Galicians specifically. He doesn’t seem to hate the more Russia-friendly people from Transcarpathia in the Hungarian kingdom, nor the Orthodox Bukovynans. Here is Buzina. I bolded the relevant parts so you can read them more easily:

Like the Austrians during the Habsburg days, Germans did not place much value in the Galicians as war material. If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best. An Austrian, Hungarian, or a Croatian native could have a brilliant military career in the Habsburg Empire, but not Galicians .

Writing "Galicians" in those sentences is a pars pro toto - go ahead, google the phrase, you pedantic ignoramus - as you can tell by the fact that "natives of Ukraine" stands right there between them with the same meaning. And no, there were nearly 5 million of them by August 1914 in a population that continued to grow rapidly after the 1910 census.

You have forgotten about the Ukrainians in Bukovina and the Hungarian kingdom

I didn't forget them, otherwise I wouldn't have pointed out that Buzina was writing only about the Galicians who numbered about 3 million out of the total 4 million (not 5 million as you claimed) Ukrainian speakers.

Buzina wasn't writing about the others, but about Galicians specifically. He doesn't seem to hate the more Russia-friendly people from Transcarpathia in the Hungarian kingdom, nor the Orthodox Bukovynans. Here is Buzina. I bolded the relevant parts so you can read them more easily:

Like the Austrians during the Habsburg days, Germans did not place much value in the Galicians as war material. If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best. An Austrian, Hungarian, or a Croatian native could have a brilliant military career in the Habsburg Empire, but not Galicians .

Writing “Galicians” in those sentences is a pars pro toto – go ahead, google the phrase, you pedantic ignoramus – as you can tell by the fact that “natives of Ukraine” stands right there between them with the same meaning. And no, there were nearly 5 million of them by August 1914 in a population that continued to grow rapidly after the 1910 census.

Sorry, but this does nothing to invalidate Buzina’s main point, which, by the way, he is making over and over and over again throughout his work, using many examples.

A "main point" supported by a bunch of lies.

And the point is this. In Russia, the Ukrainians weren’t just a minority lorded over by the Russians. They were equal proprietors of the Russian state, both of the Russian Empire and of the USSR.

The main point (at least in the excerpts here) was to present a negative picture of Galicians and their situation. Writing about Galicians doesn't prove anything about Ukrainians being equal proprietors of the Russian Empire. He seems to be bitter that the Galicians defeated the Sovoks for the heart of Ukraine.

As for your statement - sure, to a point. Ukrainians had the option of being "Russians" and those doing so who were also nobles had no problems. Incidentally, Ukrainians enjoyed a similar relationship with Poland. Indeed, there was one Ukrainian king of Poland (half-Ukrainian, at least) - but no Ukrainian Tsar of Russia. Nor Ukrainian leader of the USSR.

Galician Ukrainians were a fraction of Austria-Hungary's population so of course they were mostly inconsequential within that empire. But if the implication was that they were worse off - well, their serfdom was abolished a generation earlier, they enjoyed full literacy of schoolkids a generation earlier, and although Galicia was the poorest province in Austria (tied with Dalmatia) it was still richer per capita than the Russian Empire.

Incidentally, Buzina was taken to court eleven times on the accusation of lying in his writing. Every case was dismissed because he was able to prove his statements to be true.

Under Yanukovich courts?

You are not the first to accuse him of lying and you are just as wrong.

The proof of his being wrong is provided. He claimed no Ukrainian went above junior officer rank. The reality was one admiral, one general, one field marshal. So he was lying and I am not wrong.

So the period from 1848 to 1861 counts as a “generation”? The things one learns from svidomites.
At least you admit that Khrushchev (lived in Donetsk since childhood) and Brezhnev (born and raised in Dnepropetrovsk) had nothing to do with ”Ukraine”.
[He seems to be bitter that the Galicians defeated the Sovoks for the heart of Ukraine.]
Things composed of two incompatible halves don’t have hearts.

Close to it. Plus, serfdom in Galicia was reduced and reformed in the late 18th century, so it was much milder.

Are you implying some sort of equivalence? Because that would be stupid of you.

At least you admit that Khrushchev (lived in Donetsk since childhood) and Brezhnev (born and raised in Dnepropetrovsk) had nothing to do with ”Ukraine”.

Wrong as usual. Ask an adult to read my statement for you:

"no Ukrainian Tsar of Russia. Nor Ukrainian leader of the USSR."

Neither one was a Ukrainian, they were ethnic Russians. And Khrushchev moved to Donetsk from Russia at age 14 as an adolescent, not child. Brezhenv was not from Dnipropetrovsk city but from Dniprodzerzhynsk in the same oblast, the child of Russian settlers.

as you can tell by the fact that “natives of Ukraine” stands right there between them with the same meaning.

Natives of Ukraine are in Galicia and also outside Galicia. Clearly, Buzina was writing about Galicians which is why he mentioned Galicians repeatedly, and never Bukovynans or Transcarpathians. The excerpt was also from an article about the Galician Division, which was…Galician.

And no, there were nearly 5 million of them by August 1914

20% population growth in 4 years? What a failed attempt to cover up your ignorant claim of 5 million Ukrainians when reality was just under 4 million in 1910.

It’s funny how Buzina is wrong, and your pitiful attempts to defend him result in you, too, making ignorant factually wrong statements as Buzina does.

If you don't know what "pars pro toto" means and can't be bothered to find out, don't respond in a way that makes it obvious. Also, learn to add, and some elementary facts about demographic processes, if you want to discuss population totals.

So the period from 1848 to 1861 counts as a "generation"? The things one learns from svidomites.At least you admit that Khrushchev (lived in Donetsk since childhood) and Brezhnev (born and raised in Dnepropetrovsk) had nothing to do with ''Ukraine".[He seems to be bitter that the Galicians defeated the Sovoks for the heart of Ukraine.]Things composed of two incompatible halves don't have hearts.

So the period from 1848 to 1861 counts as a “generation”?

Close to it. Plus, serfdom in Galicia was reduced and reformed in the late 18th century, so it was much milder.

Are you implying some sort of equivalence? Because that would be stupid of you.

At least you admit that Khrushchev (lived in Donetsk since childhood) and Brezhnev (born and raised in Dnepropetrovsk) had nothing to do with ”Ukraine”.

Wrong as usual. Ask an adult to read my statement for you:

“no Ukrainian Tsar of Russia. Nor Ukrainian leader of the USSR.”

Neither one was a Ukrainian, they were ethnic Russians. And Khrushchev moved to Donetsk from Russia at age 14 as an adolescent, not child. Brezhenv was not from Dnipropetrovsk city but from Dniprodzerzhynsk in the same oblast, the child of Russian settlers.

as you can tell by the fact that “natives of Ukraine” stands right there between them with the same meaning.

Natives of Ukraine are in Galicia and also outside Galicia. Clearly, Buzina was writing about Galicians which is why he mentioned Galicians repeatedly, and never Bukovynans or Transcarpathians. The excerpt was also from an article about the Galician Division, which was...Galician.

And no, there were nearly 5 million of them by August 1914

20% population growth in 4 years? What a failed attempt to cover up your ignorant claim of 5 million Ukrainians when reality was just under 4 million in 1910.

It's funny how Buzina is wrong, and your pitiful attempts to defend him result in you, too, making ignorant factually wrong statements as Buzina does.

If you don’t know what “pars pro toto” means and can’t be bothered to find out, don’t respond in a way that makes it obvious. Also, learn to add, and some elementary facts about demographic processes, if you want to discuss population totals.

Close to it. Plus, serfdom in Galicia was reduced and reformed in the late 18th century, so it was much milder.

Are you implying some sort of equivalence? Because that would be stupid of you.

At least you admit that Khrushchev (lived in Donetsk since childhood) and Brezhnev (born and raised in Dnepropetrovsk) had nothing to do with ”Ukraine”.

Wrong as usual. Ask an adult to read my statement for you:

"no Ukrainian Tsar of Russia. Nor Ukrainian leader of the USSR."

Neither one was a Ukrainian, they were ethnic Russians. And Khrushchev moved to Donetsk from Russia at age 14 as an adolescent, not child. Brezhenv was not from Dnipropetrovsk city but from Dniprodzerzhynsk in the same oblast, the child of Russian settlers.

No Ukrainian has ruled Israel, yet Golda Meir was born in Kiev.

13 years is close to a generation? I’m just going to leave that statement of yours on record.

3: the average span of time between the birth of parents and that of their offspring

While 13 year olds having children it is indeed quite rare (even in 19th to early 20th century villages) it is not unheard of and is not far from a generation; 20 years or so would have been more accurate.

So Galician Ukrainian serfs were freed almost a generation (13 years) before Russian Ukrainian serfs were freed. There were probably at least some tiny % of Galician Ukrainians whose parents were born free when Russian Ukrainian serfs were liberated (thus, in these families, they were the 2nd free generation). Had the difference been 18 or 20 years there would be many of them.

Galicia achieved full literacy among schoolkids sometime between 1900 and 1910. Soviet Ukraine did so sometime between 1920 and 1930. So in the 1920s we had the first fully literate generation of Ukrainians in the former Russian Empire; at this time this would have been the second such generation of fully literate kids in Galicia. The Galician Ukrainian kids growing up in the 1920s almost all had literate parents (unless their parents were quite old), the ones in Soviet Ukraine did not.

So the period from 1848 to 1861 counts as a "generation"? The things one learns from svidomites.At least you admit that Khrushchev (lived in Donetsk since childhood) and Brezhnev (born and raised in Dnepropetrovsk) had nothing to do with ''Ukraine".[He seems to be bitter that the Galicians defeated the Sovoks for the heart of Ukraine.]Things composed of two incompatible halves don't have hearts.

If being born in Ukraine makes you Ukrainian you should also mention the famous Ukrainian father of the Red Army Trotsky.

If you don't know what "pars pro toto" means and can't be bothered to find out, don't respond in a way that makes it obvious. Also, learn to add, and some elementary facts about demographic processes, if you want to discuss population totals.

If you don’t know what “pars pro toto” means and can’t be bothered to find out, don’t respond in a way that makes it obvious.

Failed attempt at deflecting from the fact that Buzina was writing about Galicians, specifically, in an article with “Galicia” in the title and where non-Galicians aren’t named.

Also, learn to add, and some elementary facts about demographic processes, if you want to discuss population totals.

Says someone who claims population growth of 1 million people from 4 million, in 4 years.

3: the average span of time between the birth of parents and that of their offspring

While 13 year olds having children it is indeed quite rare (even in 19th to early 20th century villages) it is not unheard of and is not far from a generation; 20 years or so would have been more accurate.

So Galician Ukrainian serfs were freed almost a generation (13 years) before Russian Ukrainian serfs were freed. There were probably at least some tiny % of Galician Ukrainians whose parents were born free when Russian Ukrainian serfs were liberated (thus, in these families, they were the 2nd free generation). Had the difference been 18 or 20 years there would be many of them.

Galicia achieved full literacy among schoolkids sometime between 1900 and 1910. Soviet Ukraine did so sometime between 1920 and 1930. So in the 1920s we had the first fully literate generation of Ukrainians in the former Russian Empire; at this time this would have been the second such generation of fully literate kids in Galicia. The Galician Ukrainian kids growing up in the 1920s almost all had literate parents (unless their parents were quite old), the ones in Soviet Ukraine did not.

Your desperate attempts to break free simply sink you deeper and deeper into the shit you yourself excreted.
[the average span of time between the birth of parents and that of their offspring]
In other words, a minimum of 26 years or so, because parents who married young tended to continue breeding for many years after their wedding.
So according to you, 13 is close to 26. x is close to 0.5 x. Tom Thumb was close to being a giant. And you are close to having a clue.

3: the average span of time between the birth of parents and that of their offspring

While 13 year olds having children it is indeed quite rare (even in 19th to early 20th century villages) it is not unheard of and is not far from a generation; 20 years or so would have been more accurate.

So Galician Ukrainian serfs were freed almost a generation (13 years) before Russian Ukrainian serfs were freed. There were probably at least some tiny % of Galician Ukrainians whose parents were born free when Russian Ukrainian serfs were liberated (thus, in these families, they were the 2nd free generation). Had the difference been 18 or 20 years there would be many of them.

Galicia achieved full literacy among schoolkids sometime between 1900 and 1910. Soviet Ukraine did so sometime between 1920 and 1930. So in the 1920s we had the first fully literate generation of Ukrainians in the former Russian Empire; at this time this would have been the second such generation of fully literate kids in Galicia. The Galician Ukrainian kids growing up in the 1920s almost all had literate parents (unless their parents were quite old), the ones in Soviet Ukraine did not.

Is that clear enough for even you to understand?

Your desperate attempts to break free simply sink you deeper and deeper into the shit you yourself excreted.
[the average span of time between the birth of parents and that of their offspring]
In other words, a minimum of 26 years or so, because parents who married young tended to continue breeding for many years after their wedding.
So according to you, 13 is close to 26. x is close to 0.5 x. Tom Thumb was close to being a giant. And you are close to having a clue.

Your desperate attempts to break free simply sink you deeper and deeper into the shit you yourself excreted.
[the average span of time between the birth of parents and that of their offspring]
In other words, a minimum of 26 years or so, because parents who married young tended to continue breeding for many years after their wedding.
So according to you, 13 is close to 26. x is close to 0.5 x. Tom Thumb was close to being a giant. And you are close to having a clue.

So according to you, 13 is close to 26. x is close to 0.5 x.

5371 is trying to reason. How cute.

I was off by 13 years. You desperately cling to this, the only mistake I’ve made in this article’s comments.

I hate to admit I spent the better part of an hour on this, but I looked up Alexander Szaszkiewicz (Sheshkevich) in order to get a better handle on AP’s claims. He was not a Field Marshal, but rather a Feldmarschalleutnant, the Austrian equivalent to a Lieutenant General (a two star general by American standards), appointed 12th Infantry Division commander in 1907. He retired in 1909, and died in 1910. Before that he had served a one-year stint as 15th Corps Chief-of-Staff about a decade earlier. The Ukrainian Wikipedia articles states he was the highest ranked Ukrainian in the history of the K.u.K Armee, a point that seems to be supported by this Austrian State Archive list:

Every general in the Austrian Army from 1618 to 1918 is there, and many are Slavs, but only Szaszkiewicz is stands out as Ukrainian. Even Polish names seem to be scarce. One Ukrainian general in the whole organization from 1775-1918, and he never even fought in a war. That says a lot right there about the general place of this ethnic group in the Hapsburg hierarchy. Keep in mind there were a number of units where ‘Ruthenians’ (which is the best word to describe these people) were the majority of the personnel, so yes they were definitely discriminated against all against their relative size in the Empire, around 8% in 1914*.

As to why I did that research, I guess it was to show you can split hairs anyway you want if you have an agenda. Takes a whole lot of time, but I guess if you live to undermine other people’s opinions on the Internet it can be satisfying. I found it rather exhausting.

*We do not know the true numbers because Austrian authorities only recorded the “everyday” language of its subjects. I am certain a not insignificant number of Ruthenes used Polish as their everyday language for work even if the Ruthenian/Ukrainian/Eastern Slavic language was their Mother Tongue. Someone such as Szaszkiewicz might have even been recorded as German because as an army officer that would have been his everyday language as part of his state duties.

He was not a Field Marshal, but rather a Feldmarschalleutnant, the Austrian equivalent to a Lieutenant General (a two star general by American standards), appointed 12th Infantry Division commander in 1907. He retired in 1909, and died in 1910. Before that he had served a one-year stint as 15th Corps Chief-of-Staff about a decade earlier.

Thank you for the corrected translation.

Every general in the Austrian Army from 1618 to 1918 is there, and many are Slavs, but only Szaszkiewicz is stands out as Ukrainian.

Keep in mind that Buzina claimed that no Galician went beyond the rank of a junior officer.

That says a lot right there about the general place of this ethnic group in the Hapsburg hierarchy

Does it?

Or does it say a lot about the lower SES of Ukrainians who were absorbed by the Hapbsburg state. When Ukrainian lands came under Hapbsburg rule the Ukrainians there were either serfs (probably 95%), petty gentry/nobles and village priests and tiny numbers of urban people(collectively 5%). Producing two generals - which indicates larger numbers of lower officers - from this population was not a bad result. Shashkeivch's father was the first member of his family to enter the military, and he became a major.

I guess it was to show you can split hairs anyway you want if you have an agenda

"Even Polish names seem to be scarce." Yes. Russia, Germany and Austria tended to keep higher military positions to their own. So you will for example masses of polish cannon fodder in lower ranks, plenty of middle rank officers. But not many higher and in general staff. Not to be trusted. I don't see why it was supposed to be different with Ukrainians.

Please stop feeding the Zionist troll. Whether he’s calling himself AP today or Dr. Preobezhovsky or whatever his old name was. His job is to hijack the comment section and distract attention from the real issues by getting everyone arguing over irrelevant points that have nothing to do with the article. It seems he’s having quite a lot of success. He’s earned his pay from the NSA, Mossad or SBU. I would give him a bonus. And yes, slandering journalists who they have recently murdered is not below the belt for them – nothing is. Look at how they act in Israel, these people have literally no shame.

You are correct. My point was to highlight that Buzina's claim that there were no Galician Ukrainians beyond junior rank officers within the A-H military was total nonsense.

This is a fully deserved answer to your petty and malicious posts: “slanderously barking at your betters, especially at those who unlike you have already paid a heavy price for their convictions.”
Buzina was a principled and courageous man. These qualifications seem to be unbearable for you.

Ladies and gentlemen!
I think there is some confusion of geography. It is well known that
В огороде бузина, а в Киеве дядька.All you discussion assumes that Buzina was active in Kiev,
in contradiction with people's wisdom.
In most other cases I agree with Ms. annamarina.

This is a fully deserved answer to your petty and malicious posts: "slanderously barking at your betters, especially at those who unlike you have already paid a heavy price for their convictions."Buzina was a principled and courageous man. These qualifications seem to be unbearable for you.

No, dishonesty is unbearable to me. Our host here is principled and obviously pro-Russian, but also honest. Unlike Buzina.

While Buzina certainly didn’t deserve to be murdered, being murdered does not absolve one of dishonesty and ignorance.

I hate to admit I spent the better part of an hour on this, but I looked up Alexander Szaszkiewicz (Sheshkevich) in order to get a better handle on AP's claims. He was not a Field Marshal, but rather a Feldmarschalleutnant, the Austrian equivalent to a Lieutenant General (a two star general by American standards), appointed 12th Infantry Division commander in 1907. He retired in 1909, and died in 1910. Before that he had served a one-year stint as 15th Corps Chief-of-Staff about a decade earlier. The Ukrainian Wikipedia articles states he was the highest ranked Ukrainian in the history of the K.u.K Armee, a point that seems to be supported by this Austrian State Archive list:

http://www.oesta.gv.at/DocView.axd?CobId=23130

Every general in the Austrian Army from 1618 to 1918 is there, and many are Slavs, but only Szaszkiewicz is stands out as Ukrainian. Even Polish names seem to be scarce. One Ukrainian general in the whole organization from 1775-1918, and he never even fought in a war. That says a lot right there about the general place of this ethnic group in the Hapsburg hierarchy. Keep in mind there were a number of units where 'Ruthenians' (which is the best word to describe these people) were the majority of the personnel, so yes they were definitely discriminated against all against their relative size in the Empire, around 8% in 1914*.

As to why I did that research, I guess it was to show you can split hairs anyway you want if you have an agenda. Takes a whole lot of time, but I guess if you live to undermine other people's opinions on the Internet it can be satisfying. I found it rather exhausting.

*We do not know the true numbers because Austrian authorities only recorded the "everyday" language of its subjects. I am certain a not insignificant number of Ruthenes used Polish as their everyday language for work even if the Ruthenian/Ukrainian/Eastern Slavic language was their Mother Tongue. Someone such as Szaszkiewicz might have even been recorded as German because as an army officer that would have been his everyday language as part of his state duties.

He was not a Field Marshal, but rather a Feldmarschalleutnant, the Austrian equivalent to a Lieutenant General (a two star general by American standards), appointed 12th Infantry Division commander in 1907. He retired in 1909, and died in 1910. Before that he had served a one-year stint as 15th Corps Chief-of-Staff about a decade earlier.

Thank you for the corrected translation.

Every general in the Austrian Army from 1618 to 1918 is there, and many are Slavs, but only Szaszkiewicz is stands out as Ukrainian.

Keep in mind that Buzina claimed that no Galician went beyond the rank of a junior officer.

That says a lot right there about the general place of this ethnic group in the Hapsburg hierarchy

Does it?

Or does it say a lot about the lower SES of Ukrainians who were absorbed by the Hapbsburg state. When Ukrainian lands came under Hapbsburg rule the Ukrainians there were either serfs (probably 95%), petty gentry/nobles and village priests and tiny numbers of urban people(collectively 5%). Producing two generals – which indicates larger numbers of lower officers – from this population was not a bad result. Shashkeivch’s father was the first member of his family to enter the military, and he became a major.

I guess it was to show you can split hairs anyway you want if you have an agenda

This is a fully deserved answer to your petty and malicious posts: "slanderously barking at your betters, especially at those who unlike you have already paid a heavy price for their convictions."Buzina was a principled and courageous man. These qualifications seem to be unbearable for you.

Ladies and gentlemen!
I think there is some confusion of geography. It is well known thatВ огороде бузина, а в Киеве дядька.
All you discussion assumes that Buzina was active in Kiev,
in contradiction with people’s wisdom.
In most other cases I agree with Ms. annamarina.

Ladies and gentlemen!
I think there is some confusion of geography. It is well known that
В огороде бузина, а в Киеве дядька.All you discussion assumes that Buzina was active in Kiev,
in contradiction with people's wisdom.
In most other cases I agree with Ms. annamarina.

This is one more time, for you, Oles Buzina was shot “not far from his flat in Kiev.”

Buzina employment history in Ukraine:

Newspaper Kievskiye Vedomosti (1993-2005)
Newspaper 2000 (2005-2006)
Various magazines, such as Natali, EGO Ukraine, XXL Ukraine
From October 2006 Buzina was an anchorman of Teen-liga program on TV channel Inter
Newspaper Segodnya, where he had his own column and blog since 2007
An an expert, he participated in the reality-show Bachelor on TV channel STB from 2011
From 2012 he was host of Tracking the Ancestors show on K-1 TV channel.
In January 2015 he became editor-in-chief of Segodnya newspaper, where he had worked for many years. He resigned in March, protesting the censorship of the newspaper’s owners, having limited control over newspaper’s policy, his absence of control over newspaper’s website, and an imposed ban on his appearance on TV and interviews with the press.

Very funny. So, Buzina was an anchor for a Teen program on TV, then a columnist for a newspaper owned by Yanukovch's sponsor, the Donbas oligarch Akhmetov, an "Expert" on a Bachelor Reality TV show, host of some fluff ancestry show on another TV channel, and finally chief editor of the Yanukovich-linked paper before leaving after Yanukovich's fall (presumably because the paper had passed under someone else's control).

In the meantime he was writing nonsense that we have been discussing here.

Amazing how "martyrdom" can make a hero even of such a silly creature.

Very funny. So, Buzina was an anchor for a Teen program on TV, then a columnist for a newspaper owned by Yanukovch's sponsor, the Donbas oligarch Akhmetov, an "Expert" on a Bachelor Reality TV show, host of some fluff ancestry show on another TV channel, and finally chief editor of the Yanukovich-linked paper before leaving after Yanukovich's fall.

In the meantime he was writing nonsense that we have been discussing here.

Amazing how "martyrdom" can make a hero even of such a silly creature, and that some people actually view this creature as a credible source of information.

He was not a Field Marshal, but rather a Feldmarschalleutnant, the Austrian equivalent to a Lieutenant General (a two star general by American standards), appointed 12th Infantry Division commander in 1907. He retired in 1909, and died in 1910. Before that he had served a one-year stint as 15th Corps Chief-of-Staff about a decade earlier.

Thank you for the corrected translation.

Every general in the Austrian Army from 1618 to 1918 is there, and many are Slavs, but only Szaszkiewicz is stands out as Ukrainian.

Keep in mind that Buzina claimed that no Galician went beyond the rank of a junior officer.

That says a lot right there about the general place of this ethnic group in the Hapsburg hierarchy

Does it?

Or does it say a lot about the lower SES of Ukrainians who were absorbed by the Hapbsburg state. When Ukrainian lands came under Hapbsburg rule the Ukrainians there were either serfs (probably 95%), petty gentry/nobles and village priests and tiny numbers of urban people(collectively 5%). Producing two generals - which indicates larger numbers of lower officers - from this population was not a bad result. Shashkeivch's father was the first member of his family to enter the military, and he became a major.

I guess it was to show you can split hairs anyway you want if you have an agenda

I hate to admit I spent the better part of an hour on this, but I looked up Alexander Szaszkiewicz (Sheshkevich) in order to get a better handle on AP's claims. He was not a Field Marshal, but rather a Feldmarschalleutnant, the Austrian equivalent to a Lieutenant General (a two star general by American standards), appointed 12th Infantry Division commander in 1907. He retired in 1909, and died in 1910. Before that he had served a one-year stint as 15th Corps Chief-of-Staff about a decade earlier. The Ukrainian Wikipedia articles states he was the highest ranked Ukrainian in the history of the K.u.K Armee, a point that seems to be supported by this Austrian State Archive list:

http://www.oesta.gv.at/DocView.axd?CobId=23130

Every general in the Austrian Army from 1618 to 1918 is there, and many are Slavs, but only Szaszkiewicz is stands out as Ukrainian. Even Polish names seem to be scarce. One Ukrainian general in the whole organization from 1775-1918, and he never even fought in a war. That says a lot right there about the general place of this ethnic group in the Hapsburg hierarchy. Keep in mind there were a number of units where 'Ruthenians' (which is the best word to describe these people) were the majority of the personnel, so yes they were definitely discriminated against all against their relative size in the Empire, around 8% in 1914*.

As to why I did that research, I guess it was to show you can split hairs anyway you want if you have an agenda. Takes a whole lot of time, but I guess if you live to undermine other people's opinions on the Internet it can be satisfying. I found it rather exhausting.

*We do not know the true numbers because Austrian authorities only recorded the "everyday" language of its subjects. I am certain a not insignificant number of Ruthenes used Polish as their everyday language for work even if the Ruthenian/Ukrainian/Eastern Slavic language was their Mother Tongue. Someone such as Szaszkiewicz might have even been recorded as German because as an army officer that would have been his everyday language as part of his state duties.

Minor quibble:

He was not a Field Marshal, but rather a Feldmarschalleutnant, the Austrian equivalent to a Lieutenant General (a two star general by American standards)

No, it's a discrepancy caused by the divergence in Central European/Anglo-American ranking systems. Pre-1914, Germany, Austria, and Russia used a very similar system for General Ranks, that was organized as such:

Generalmajor (one-star)
Generalleutnant/Feldmarschall-Leutnant (two-star)
General (three-star)
Generaloberst (four-star, Germany only; Austria adopted it in WWI)
Generalfeldmarschall ('five-star', but technically speaking not a rank but an honor given to generals who were victorious in war)

This system survive in somewhat modified forms to the current day in these countries and those influenced by them.

The British system started out following Continental norms, but diverged over the centuries as it settled into this system:

Brigadier-General (one-star, abolished in 1922)
Major-General (two-star)
Lieutenant-General (three-star)
General (four-star)
Field Marshal (five-star, but again more of an honor than a rank)

And from this we get the modern American system, which replaced Field Marshal with General of the Army. So an Austrian Lieutenant-General is the equal of an American Major-General in rank. The wording from my first post could have been clearer, but the point remains; only full generals and above could command corps and field armies, and the k.u.k. did not promote many Galicians of any background to lead these vital and coveted formations.

The Russian Imperial Army on the other hand had Polish, Cossack, Ukrainian, and Belorussian generals by the hundreds and a number of them made it to the highest posts.

Brusilov, the celebrated general from WWI had a Polish mother, and many other officers had mixed backgrounds.

And there's the story of General Thedorenko:

http://marksrussianmilitaryhistory.info/Thedorenko1.htm

I'm not claiming the Russian Empire was a utopia, but if we want to talk about opportunity, Poles and Ukrainians were given a lot more chances to climb the social ladder than their brethren in Austria-Hungary and Prussia. The Prussian (and the succeeding German) state was awful to Poles, and went out of its way to prevent ethnic Poles from being allowed any sort of high status, and force them to abandon their culture and even their lands, but this story is buried in modern Western narrative. Even in Poland this is played down to focus on the crimes of Russia, which makes no sense unless the goal is to stir up hatred and war fever. And that is what this really seems to be all about.

No, it's a discrepancy caused by the divergence in Central European/Anglo-American ranking systems. Pre-1914, Germany, Austria, and Russia used a very similar system for General Ranks, that was organized as such:

Generalmajor (one-star)
Generalleutnant/Feldmarschall-Leutnant (two-star)
General (three-star)
Generaloberst (four-star, Germany only; Austria adopted it in WWI)
Generalfeldmarschall ('five-star', but technically speaking not a rank but an honor given to generals who were victorious in war)

This system survive in somewhat modified forms to the current day in these countries and those influenced by them.

The British system started out following Continental norms, but diverged over the centuries as it settled into this system:

Brigadier-General (one-star, abolished in 1922)
Major-General (two-star)
Lieutenant-General (three-star)
General (four-star)
Field Marshal (five-star, but again more of an honor than a rank)

And from this we get the modern American system, which replaced Field Marshal with General of the Army. So an Austrian Lieutenant-General is the equal of an American Major-General in rank. The wording from my first post could have been clearer, but the point remains; only full generals and above could command corps and field armies, and the k.u.k. did not promote many Galicians of any background to lead these vital and coveted formations.

The Russian Imperial Army on the other hand had Polish, Cossack, Ukrainian, and Belorussian generals by the hundreds and a number of them made it to the highest posts.

Brusilov, the celebrated general from WWI had a Polish mother, and many other officers had mixed backgrounds.

And there's the story of General Thedorenko:

http://marksrussianmilitaryhistory.info/Thedorenko1.htm

I'm not claiming the Russian Empire was a utopia, but if we want to talk about opportunity, Poles and Ukrainians were given a lot more chances to climb the social ladder than their brethren in Austria-Hungary and Prussia. The Prussian (and the succeeding German) state was awful to Poles, and went out of its way to prevent ethnic Poles from being allowed any sort of high status, and force them to abandon their culture and even their lands, but this story is buried in modern Western narrative. Even in Poland this is played down to focus on the crimes of Russia, which makes no sense unless the goal is to stir up hatred and war fever. And that is what this really seems to be all about.

No, it's a discrepancy caused by the divergence in Central European/Anglo-American ranking systems. Pre-1914, Germany, Austria, and Russia used a very similar system for General Ranks, that was organized as such:

Generalmajor (one-star)
Generalleutnant/Feldmarschall-Leutnant (two-star)
General (three-star)
Generaloberst (four-star, Germany only; Austria adopted it in WWI)
Generalfeldmarschall ('five-star', but technically speaking not a rank but an honor given to generals who were victorious in war)

This system survive in somewhat modified forms to the current day in these countries and those influenced by them.

The British system started out following Continental norms, but diverged over the centuries as it settled into this system:

Brigadier-General (one-star, abolished in 1922)
Major-General (two-star)
Lieutenant-General (three-star)
General (four-star)
Field Marshal (five-star, but again more of an honor than a rank)

And from this we get the modern American system, which replaced Field Marshal with General of the Army. So an Austrian Lieutenant-General is the equal of an American Major-General in rank. The wording from my first post could have been clearer, but the point remains; only full generals and above could command corps and field armies, and the k.u.k. did not promote many Galicians of any background to lead these vital and coveted formations.

The Russian Imperial Army on the other hand had Polish, Cossack, Ukrainian, and Belorussian generals by the hundreds and a number of them made it to the highest posts.

Brusilov, the celebrated general from WWI had a Polish mother, and many other officers had mixed backgrounds.

And there's the story of General Thedorenko:

http://marksrussianmilitaryhistory.info/Thedorenko1.htm

I'm not claiming the Russian Empire was a utopia, but if we want to talk about opportunity, Poles and Ukrainians were given a lot more chances to climb the social ladder than their brethren in Austria-Hungary and Prussia. The Prussian (and the succeeding German) state was awful to Poles, and went out of its way to prevent ethnic Poles from being allowed any sort of high status, and force them to abandon their culture and even their lands, but this story is buried in modern Western narrative. Even in Poland this is played down to focus on the crimes of Russia, which makes no sense unless the goal is to stir up hatred and war fever. And that is what this really seems to be all about.

I hate to admit I spent the better part of an hour on this, but I looked up Alexander Szaszkiewicz (Sheshkevich) in order to get a better handle on AP's claims. He was not a Field Marshal, but rather a Feldmarschalleutnant, the Austrian equivalent to a Lieutenant General (a two star general by American standards), appointed 12th Infantry Division commander in 1907. He retired in 1909, and died in 1910. Before that he had served a one-year stint as 15th Corps Chief-of-Staff about a decade earlier. The Ukrainian Wikipedia articles states he was the highest ranked Ukrainian in the history of the K.u.K Armee, a point that seems to be supported by this Austrian State Archive list:

http://www.oesta.gv.at/DocView.axd?CobId=23130

Every general in the Austrian Army from 1618 to 1918 is there, and many are Slavs, but only Szaszkiewicz is stands out as Ukrainian. Even Polish names seem to be scarce. One Ukrainian general in the whole organization from 1775-1918, and he never even fought in a war. That says a lot right there about the general place of this ethnic group in the Hapsburg hierarchy. Keep in mind there were a number of units where 'Ruthenians' (which is the best word to describe these people) were the majority of the personnel, so yes they were definitely discriminated against all against their relative size in the Empire, around 8% in 1914*.

As to why I did that research, I guess it was to show you can split hairs anyway you want if you have an agenda. Takes a whole lot of time, but I guess if you live to undermine other people's opinions on the Internet it can be satisfying. I found it rather exhausting.

*We do not know the true numbers because Austrian authorities only recorded the "everyday" language of its subjects. I am certain a not insignificant number of Ruthenes used Polish as their everyday language for work even if the Ruthenian/Ukrainian/Eastern Slavic language was their Mother Tongue. Someone such as Szaszkiewicz might have even been recorded as German because as an army officer that would have been his everyday language as part of his state duties.

“Even Polish names seem to be scarce.” Yes. Russia, Germany and Austria tended to keep higher military positions to their own. So you will for example masses of polish cannon fodder in lower ranks, plenty of middle rank officers. But not many higher and in general staff. Not to be trusted. I don’t see why it was supposed to be different with Ukrainians.

"Oles Buzina was a Ukrainian journalist and writer... He was murdered on 16 April 2015, shot on the sidewalk not far from his flat in Kiev."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oles_Buzina

This is one more time, for you, Oles Buzina was shot "not far from his flat in Kiev."

Buzina employment history in Ukraine:

Newspaper Kievskiye Vedomosti (1993-2005)
Newspaper 2000 (2005-2006)
Various magazines, such as Natali, EGO Ukraine, XXL Ukraine
From October 2006 Buzina was an anchorman of Teen-liga program on TV channel Inter
Newspaper Segodnya, where he had his own column and blog since 2007
An an expert, he participated in the reality-show Bachelor on TV channel STB from 2011
From 2012 he was host of Tracking the Ancestors show on K-1 TV channel.
In January 2015 he became editor-in-chief of Segodnya newspaper, where he had worked for many years. He resigned in March, protesting the censorship of the newspaper's owners, having limited control over newspaper's policy, his absence of control over newspaper's website, and an imposed ban on his appearance on TV and interviews with the press.

Very funny. So, Buzina was an anchor for a Teen program on TV, then a columnist for a newspaper owned by Yanukovch’s sponsor, the Donbas oligarch Akhmetov, an “Expert” on a Bachelor Reality TV show, host of some fluff ancestry show on another TV channel, and finally chief editor of the Yanukovich-linked paper before leaving after Yanukovich’s fall (presumably because the paper had passed under someone else’s control).

In the meantime he was writing nonsense that we have been discussing here.

Amazing how “martyrdom” can make a hero even of such a silly creature.

"Oles Buzina was a Ukrainian journalist and writer... He was murdered on 16 April 2015, shot on the sidewalk not far from his flat in Kiev."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oles_Buzina

This is one more time, for you, Oles Buzina was shot "not far from his flat in Kiev."

Buzina employment history in Ukraine:

Newspaper Kievskiye Vedomosti (1993-2005)
Newspaper 2000 (2005-2006)
Various magazines, such as Natali, EGO Ukraine, XXL Ukraine
From October 2006 Buzina was an anchorman of Teen-liga program on TV channel Inter
Newspaper Segodnya, where he had his own column and blog since 2007
An an expert, he participated in the reality-show Bachelor on TV channel STB from 2011
From 2012 he was host of Tracking the Ancestors show on K-1 TV channel.
In January 2015 he became editor-in-chief of Segodnya newspaper, where he had worked for many years. He resigned in March, protesting the censorship of the newspaper's owners, having limited control over newspaper's policy, his absence of control over newspaper's website, and an imposed ban on his appearance on TV and interviews with the press.

Very funny. So, Buzina was an anchor for a Teen program on TV, then a columnist for a newspaper owned by Yanukovch’s sponsor, the Donbas oligarch Akhmetov, an “Expert” on a Bachelor Reality TV show, host of some fluff ancestry show on another TV channel, and finally chief editor of the Yanukovich-linked paper before leaving after Yanukovich’s fall.

In the meantime he was writing nonsense that we have been discussing here.

Amazing how “martyrdom” can make a hero even of such a silly creature, and that some people actually view this creature as a credible source of information.

"Even Polish names seem to be scarce." Yes. Russia, Germany and Austria tended to keep higher military positions to their own. So you will for example masses of polish cannon fodder in lower ranks, plenty of middle rank officers. But not many higher and in general staff. Not to be trusted. I don't see why it was supposed to be different with Ukrainians.

Actually, Ukrainians had no problems achieving highest ranks in the Russian army. For example, Field Marshal Ivan Paskevich who took Warsaw in 1831 was Ukrainian from Poltava.

He was not a Field Marshal, but rather a Feldmarschalleutnant, the Austrian equivalent to a Lieutenant General (a two star general by American standards)

Actually, it's the equivalent of a 3 star general in the USA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieutenant_general_(United_States)

No, it’s a discrepancy caused by the divergence in Central European/Anglo-American ranking systems. Pre-1914, Germany, Austria, and Russia used a very similar system for General Ranks, that was organized as such:

Generalmajor (one-star)
Generalleutnant/Feldmarschall-Leutnant (two-star)
General (three-star)
Generaloberst (four-star, Germany only; Austria adopted it in WWI)
Generalfeldmarschall (‘five-star’, but technically speaking not a rank but an honor given to generals who were victorious in war)

This system survive in somewhat modified forms to the current day in these countries and those influenced by them.

The British system started out following Continental norms, but diverged over the centuries as it settled into this system:

Brigadier-General (one-star, abolished in 1922)
Major-General (two-star)
Lieutenant-General (three-star)
General (four-star)
Field Marshal (five-star, but again more of an honor than a rank)

And from this we get the modern American system, which replaced Field Marshal with General of the Army. So an Austrian Lieutenant-General is the equal of an American Major-General in rank. The wording from my first post could have been clearer, but the point remains; only full generals and above could command corps and field armies, and the k.u.k. did not promote many Galicians of any background to lead these vital and coveted formations.

The Russian Imperial Army on the other hand had Polish, Cossack, Ukrainian, and Belorussian generals by the hundreds and a number of them made it to the highest posts.

I’m not claiming the Russian Empire was a utopia, but if we want to talk about opportunity, Poles and Ukrainians were given a lot more chances to climb the social ladder than their brethren in Austria-Hungary and Prussia. The Prussian (and the succeeding German) state was awful to Poles, and went out of its way to prevent ethnic Poles from being allowed any sort of high status, and force them to abandon their culture and even their lands, but this story is buried in modern Western narrative. Even in Poland this is played down to focus on the crimes of Russia, which makes no sense unless the goal is to stir up hatred and war fever. And that is what this really seems to be all about.

Thanks you for the information. But since in Austria there was no "General-oberst" this would make Feldmarschall-Leutnant the second from the top rank ?

I’m not claiming the Russian Empire was a utopia, but if we want to talk about opportunity, Poles and Ukrainians were given a lot more chances to climb the social ladder than their brethren in Austria-Hungary and Prussia.

Again, was it opportunity? Russia absorbed the Ukrainian Hetman State, which was full of high-ranking officers (and thus their descendants) with generations of military backgrounds. Paskevich and the Razumovsky families, for example, came from such backgrounds.

Austria absorbed Galicia, whose Ukrainian population were almost all serfs, and whose non-serfs were either village priest-families or poor petty gentry who were basically just lived as free farmers (these two groups overlapped) . Shashkevich, the Feldmarschall-Leutnant, was from a priest/petty gentry family. His father was the first in the family to go into the military, and he became a major. The captains, majors, colonels of Galician Ukrainian origins thus represented very substantial social mobility. A Ukrainian descendant of Cossack colonels who became a Russian general does not seem better than a Ukrainian captain who grandparents were somebody's property.

The other point is that advancement or having a good life in general in Russia seems to have been more conditional on loyalty to the Russian state. That is, Poles or Ukrainians loyal to the Hapsburgs did not produce as many generals as did those loyal to the Tsars, but those who were not so loyal or who pursued their own national interests were much less likely to be persecuted, such as sent to Siberia.

As I had mentioned earlier, other factors supported the idea that Russia was worse than Austria.* Serfdom was less onerous in Austria than in Russia (serfs obligations were cut down, they had access to neutral courts, etc.) and was abolished 13 years earlier. Schools were organized much earlier and in the local language, such that full literacy of children (for Ukrainians) was achieved by 1910 and never happened under the Tsars. The Bolsheviks managed it in the 1920s and Tsars probably would have done the same by then or not much later.

*Note that I am deliberately not writing "Austria-Hungary." The Hungarian part was unambiguously repressive towards it Slavic subjects.

He was not a Field Marshal, but rather a Feldmarschalleutnant, the Austrian equivalent to a Lieutenant General (a two star general by American standards)

Actually, it's the equivalent of a 3 star general in the USA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieutenant_general_(United_States)

No, it’s a discrepancy caused by the divergence in Central European/Anglo-American ranking systems. Pre-1914, Germany, Austria, and Russia used a very similar system for General Ranks, that was organized as such:

Generalmajor (one-star)
Generalleutnant/Feldmarschall-Leutnant (two-star)
General (three-star)
Generaloberst (four-star, Germany only; Austria adopted it in WWI)
Generalfeldmarschall (‘five-star’, but technically speaking not a rank but an honor given to generals who were victorious in war)

This system survive in somewhat modified forms to the current day in these countries and those influenced by them.

The British system started out following Continental norms, but diverged over the centuries as it settled into this system:

Brigadier-General (one-star, abolished in 1922)
Major-General (two-star)
Lieutenant-General (three-star)
General (four-star)
Field Marshal (five-star, but again more of an honor than a rank)

And from this we get the modern American system, which replaced Field Marshal with General of the Army. So an Austrian Lieutenant-General is the equal of an American Major-General in rank. The wording from my first post could have been clearer, but the point remains; only full generals and above could command corps and field armies, and the k.u.k. did not promote many Galicians of any background to lead these vital and coveted formations.

The Russian Imperial Army on the other hand had Polish, Cossack, Ukrainian, and Belorussian generals by the hundreds and a number of them made it to the highest posts.

I’m not claiming the Russian Empire was a utopia, but if we want to talk about opportunity, Poles and Ukrainians were given a lot more chances to climb the social ladder than their brethren in Austria-Hungary and Prussia. The Prussian (and the succeeding German) state was awful to Poles, and went out of its way to prevent ethnic Poles from being allowed any sort of high status, and force them to abandon their culture and even their lands, but this story is buried in modern Western narrative. Even in Poland this is played down to focus on the crimes of Russia, which makes no sense unless the goal is to stir up hatred and war fever. And that is what this really seems to be all about.

For that matter, in 1942-3 the Banderite beasts killed vastly more defenceless Polish civilians than the USSR did at Katyn or all the three empires did throughout their history. So why would anyone be surprised at Polish hypocrisy or bad faith?

He was not a Field Marshal, but rather a Feldmarschalleutnant, the Austrian equivalent to a Lieutenant General (a two star general by American standards)

Actually, it's the equivalent of a 3 star general in the USA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieutenant_general_(United_States)

No, it’s a discrepancy caused by the divergence in Central European/Anglo-American ranking systems. Pre-1914, Germany, Austria, and Russia used a very similar system for General Ranks, that was organized as such:

Generalmajor (one-star)
Generalleutnant/Feldmarschall-Leutnant (two-star)
General (three-star)
Generaloberst (four-star, Germany only; Austria adopted it in WWI)
Generalfeldmarschall (‘five-star’, but technically speaking not a rank but an honor given to generals who were victorious in war)

This system survive in somewhat modified forms to the current day in these countries and those influenced by them.

The British system started out following Continental norms, but diverged over the centuries as it settled into this system:

Brigadier-General (one-star, abolished in 1922)
Major-General (two-star)
Lieutenant-General (three-star)
General (four-star)
Field Marshal (five-star, but again more of an honor than a rank)

And from this we get the modern American system, which replaced Field Marshal with General of the Army. So an Austrian Lieutenant-General is the equal of an American Major-General in rank. The wording from my first post could have been clearer, but the point remains; only full generals and above could command corps and field armies, and the k.u.k. did not promote many Galicians of any background to lead these vital and coveted formations.

The Russian Imperial Army on the other hand had Polish, Cossack, Ukrainian, and Belorussian generals by the hundreds and a number of them made it to the highest posts.

I’m not claiming the Russian Empire was a utopia, but if we want to talk about opportunity, Poles and Ukrainians were given a lot more chances to climb the social ladder than their brethren in Austria-Hungary and Prussia. The Prussian (and the succeeding German) state was awful to Poles, and went out of its way to prevent ethnic Poles from being allowed any sort of high status, and force them to abandon their culture and even their lands, but this story is buried in modern Western narrative. Even in Poland this is played down to focus on the crimes of Russia, which makes no sense unless the goal is to stir up hatred and war fever. And that is what this really seems to be all about.

Very funny. So, Buzina was an anchor for a Teen program on TV, then a columnist for a newspaper owned by Yanukovch's sponsor, the Donbas oligarch Akhmetov, an "Expert" on a Bachelor Reality TV show, host of some fluff ancestry show on another TV channel, and finally chief editor of the Yanukovich-linked paper before leaving after Yanukovich's fall.

In the meantime he was writing nonsense that we have been discussing here.

Amazing how "martyrdom" can make a hero even of such a silly creature, and that some people actually view this creature as a credible source of information.

Buzina provided information such as: "If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best." which as we have seen is a lie.

No, it's a discrepancy caused by the divergence in Central European/Anglo-American ranking systems. Pre-1914, Germany, Austria, and Russia used a very similar system for General Ranks, that was organized as such:

Generalmajor (one-star)
Generalleutnant/Feldmarschall-Leutnant (two-star)
General (three-star)
Generaloberst (four-star, Germany only; Austria adopted it in WWI)
Generalfeldmarschall ('five-star', but technically speaking not a rank but an honor given to generals who were victorious in war)

This system survive in somewhat modified forms to the current day in these countries and those influenced by them.

The British system started out following Continental norms, but diverged over the centuries as it settled into this system:

Brigadier-General (one-star, abolished in 1922)
Major-General (two-star)
Lieutenant-General (three-star)
General (four-star)
Field Marshal (five-star, but again more of an honor than a rank)

And from this we get the modern American system, which replaced Field Marshal with General of the Army. So an Austrian Lieutenant-General is the equal of an American Major-General in rank. The wording from my first post could have been clearer, but the point remains; only full generals and above could command corps and field armies, and the k.u.k. did not promote many Galicians of any background to lead these vital and coveted formations.

The Russian Imperial Army on the other hand had Polish, Cossack, Ukrainian, and Belorussian generals by the hundreds and a number of them made it to the highest posts.

Brusilov, the celebrated general from WWI had a Polish mother, and many other officers had mixed backgrounds.

And there's the story of General Thedorenko:

http://marksrussianmilitaryhistory.info/Thedorenko1.htm

I'm not claiming the Russian Empire was a utopia, but if we want to talk about opportunity, Poles and Ukrainians were given a lot more chances to climb the social ladder than their brethren in Austria-Hungary and Prussia. The Prussian (and the succeeding German) state was awful to Poles, and went out of its way to prevent ethnic Poles from being allowed any sort of high status, and force them to abandon their culture and even their lands, but this story is buried in modern Western narrative. Even in Poland this is played down to focus on the crimes of Russia, which makes no sense unless the goal is to stir up hatred and war fever. And that is what this really seems to be all about.

For that matter, in 1942-3 the Banderite beasts killed vastly more defenceless Polish civilians than the USSR did at Katyn or all the three empires did throughout their history. So why would anyone be surprised at Polish hypocrisy or bad faith?

For that matter, in 1942-3 the Banderite beasts killed vastly more defenceless Polish civilians than the USSR did at Katyn

At Katyn, sure. Over a period of about two years UPA murdered more Poles than Soviets did Polish officers in those few days in Katyn. But overall, the Soviets killed more Poles.

If you want to compare murders of the mid 20th century, UPA committed theirs on lands that had always been majority Ukrainian populated, for the purpose of national liberation. They were acting like the Mau Mau in Africa, Algerians, etc. Or better - like Khmelnytsky's peasant uprisings, where lots of Polish and Jewish civilians were slaughtered (and this didn't prevent the Soviets from having an honor in Khmelytsky's name - funny, isn't it?)

Soviets committed their murders in order to take others' lands.

And don't forget the Americans. Germany never attacked America, never tried to occupy it, yet Americans targeted and killed probably over a million German civilians during their "terror bombing" campaigns. Dresden alone probably resulted in at least half as many civilian deaths as UPA killed Poles in the entire war.

UPAs actions were criminal and disgusting. But singling them out is absurd. And Poles see the hypocrisy of Russians doing so.

No, it's a discrepancy caused by the divergence in Central European/Anglo-American ranking systems. Pre-1914, Germany, Austria, and Russia used a very similar system for General Ranks, that was organized as such:

Generalmajor (one-star)
Generalleutnant/Feldmarschall-Leutnant (two-star)
General (three-star)
Generaloberst (four-star, Germany only; Austria adopted it in WWI)
Generalfeldmarschall ('five-star', but technically speaking not a rank but an honor given to generals who were victorious in war)

This system survive in somewhat modified forms to the current day in these countries and those influenced by them.

The British system started out following Continental norms, but diverged over the centuries as it settled into this system:

Brigadier-General (one-star, abolished in 1922)
Major-General (two-star)
Lieutenant-General (three-star)
General (four-star)
Field Marshal (five-star, but again more of an honor than a rank)

And from this we get the modern American system, which replaced Field Marshal with General of the Army. So an Austrian Lieutenant-General is the equal of an American Major-General in rank. The wording from my first post could have been clearer, but the point remains; only full generals and above could command corps and field armies, and the k.u.k. did not promote many Galicians of any background to lead these vital and coveted formations.

The Russian Imperial Army on the other hand had Polish, Cossack, Ukrainian, and Belorussian generals by the hundreds and a number of them made it to the highest posts.

Brusilov, the celebrated general from WWI had a Polish mother, and many other officers had mixed backgrounds.

And there's the story of General Thedorenko:

http://marksrussianmilitaryhistory.info/Thedorenko1.htm

I'm not claiming the Russian Empire was a utopia, but if we want to talk about opportunity, Poles and Ukrainians were given a lot more chances to climb the social ladder than their brethren in Austria-Hungary and Prussia. The Prussian (and the succeeding German) state was awful to Poles, and went out of its way to prevent ethnic Poles from being allowed any sort of high status, and force them to abandon their culture and even their lands, but this story is buried in modern Western narrative. Even in Poland this is played down to focus on the crimes of Russia, which makes no sense unless the goal is to stir up hatred and war fever. And that is what this really seems to be all about.

Thanks you for the information. But since in Austria there was no “General-oberst” this would make Feldmarschall-Leutnant the second from the top rank ?

I’m not claiming the Russian Empire was a utopia, but if we want to talk about opportunity, Poles and Ukrainians were given a lot more chances to climb the social ladder than their brethren in Austria-Hungary and Prussia.

Again, was it opportunity? Russia absorbed the Ukrainian Hetman State, which was full of high-ranking officers (and thus their descendants) with generations of military backgrounds. Paskevich and the Razumovsky families, for example, came from such backgrounds.

Austria absorbed Galicia, whose Ukrainian population were almost all serfs, and whose non-serfs were either village priest-families or poor petty gentry who were basically just lived as free farmers (these two groups overlapped) . Shashkevich, the Feldmarschall-Leutnant, was from a priest/petty gentry family. His father was the first in the family to go into the military, and he became a major. The captains, majors, colonels of Galician Ukrainian origins thus represented very substantial social mobility. A Ukrainian descendant of Cossack colonels who became a Russian general does not seem better than a Ukrainian captain who grandparents were somebody’s property.

The other point is that advancement or having a good life in general in Russia seems to have been more conditional on loyalty to the Russian state. That is, Poles or Ukrainians loyal to the Hapsburgs did not produce as many generals as did those loyal to the Tsars, but those who were not so loyal or who pursued their own national interests were much less likely to be persecuted, such as sent to Siberia.

As I had mentioned earlier, other factors supported the idea that Russia was worse than Austria.* Serfdom was less onerous in Austria than in Russia (serfs obligations were cut down, they had access to neutral courts, etc.) and was abolished 13 years earlier. Schools were organized much earlier and in the local language, such that full literacy of children (for Ukrainians) was achieved by 1910 and never happened under the Tsars. The Bolsheviks managed it in the 1920s and Tsars probably would have done the same by then or not much later.

*Note that I am deliberately not writing “Austria-Hungary.” The Hungarian part was unambiguously repressive towards it Slavic subjects.

We all know that svidomites recognise only one variable as affecting the moral status of any action or institution, namely whether it was or was done or operated by Russians (in which case it was bad) or anyone else (good).

Thanks you for the information. But since in Austria there was no “General-oberst” this would make Feldmarschall-Leutnant the second from the top rank ?

Under peacetime circumstances yes, you are correct. Field Marshals would have de facto seniority over Full Generals in war, and during WWI the Austrians introduced the rank of General-oberst to line up with the reality of their greatly expanded field army.

http://www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk/comd1883.htm

Taking a look at this chart it would seem that many peacetime corps commanders (the highly sought after capstone to an officer's career) started out as FMLs, and would be promoted to Full General once it was shown they were capable of the role (maybe two years). I suspect a lot of this was due to the tight budget the AH army operated under, the Germans and the Russians generally were more generous about bestowing promotions (and higher salaries) to their senior commanders.

Buzina provided information such as: “If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best.” which as we have seen is a lie.

For that matter, in 1942-3 the Banderite beasts killed vastly more defenceless Polish civilians than the USSR did at Katyn or all the three empires did throughout their history. So why would anyone be surprised at Polish hypocrisy or bad faith?

For that matter, in 1942-3 the Banderite beasts killed vastly more defenceless Polish civilians than the USSR did at Katyn

At Katyn, sure. Over a period of about two years UPA murdered more Poles than Soviets did Polish officers in those few days in Katyn. But overall, the Soviets killed more Poles.

If you want to compare murders of the mid 20th century, UPA committed theirs on lands that had always been majority Ukrainian populated, for the purpose of national liberation. They were acting like the Mau Mau in Africa, Algerians, etc. Or better – like Khmelnytsky’s peasant uprisings, where lots of Polish and Jewish civilians were slaughtered (and this didn’t prevent the Soviets from having an honor in Khmelytsky’s name – funny, isn’t it?)

Soviets committed their murders in order to take others’ lands.

And don’t forget the Americans. Germany never attacked America, never tried to occupy it, yet Americans targeted and killed probably over a million German civilians during their “terror bombing” campaigns. Dresden alone probably resulted in at least half as many civilian deaths as UPA killed Poles in the entire war.

UPAs actions were criminal and disgusting. But singling them out is absurd. And Poles see the hypocrisy of Russians doing so.

Buzina provided information such as: "If in the Russian army, the natives of Ukraine became generals and field marshals, then in the Austrian one, they became junior officers, at best." which as we have seen is a lie.

It is strange that someone who claimed 13 years was a generation should not fear to apply the harsh name of “lie” to this slight exaggeration of Buzina.

Thanks you for the information. But since in Austria there was no "General-oberst" this would make Feldmarschall-Leutnant the second from the top rank ?

I’m not claiming the Russian Empire was a utopia, but if we want to talk about opportunity, Poles and Ukrainians were given a lot more chances to climb the social ladder than their brethren in Austria-Hungary and Prussia.

Again, was it opportunity? Russia absorbed the Ukrainian Hetman State, which was full of high-ranking officers (and thus their descendants) with generations of military backgrounds. Paskevich and the Razumovsky families, for example, came from such backgrounds.

Austria absorbed Galicia, whose Ukrainian population were almost all serfs, and whose non-serfs were either village priest-families or poor petty gentry who were basically just lived as free farmers (these two groups overlapped) . Shashkevich, the Feldmarschall-Leutnant, was from a priest/petty gentry family. His father was the first in the family to go into the military, and he became a major. The captains, majors, colonels of Galician Ukrainian origins thus represented very substantial social mobility. A Ukrainian descendant of Cossack colonels who became a Russian general does not seem better than a Ukrainian captain who grandparents were somebody's property.

The other point is that advancement or having a good life in general in Russia seems to have been more conditional on loyalty to the Russian state. That is, Poles or Ukrainians loyal to the Hapsburgs did not produce as many generals as did those loyal to the Tsars, but those who were not so loyal or who pursued their own national interests were much less likely to be persecuted, such as sent to Siberia.

As I had mentioned earlier, other factors supported the idea that Russia was worse than Austria.* Serfdom was less onerous in Austria than in Russia (serfs obligations were cut down, they had access to neutral courts, etc.) and was abolished 13 years earlier. Schools were organized much earlier and in the local language, such that full literacy of children (for Ukrainians) was achieved by 1910 and never happened under the Tsars. The Bolsheviks managed it in the 1920s and Tsars probably would have done the same by then or not much later.

*Note that I am deliberately not writing "Austria-Hungary." The Hungarian part was unambiguously repressive towards it Slavic subjects.

We all know that svidomites recognise only one variable as affecting the moral status of any action or institution, namely whether it was or was done or operated by Russians (in which case it was bad) or anyone else (good).

We all know that svidomites recognise only one variable as affecting the moral status of any action or institution, namely whether it was or was done or operated by Russians (in which case it was bad) or anyone else (good).

Who claimed Russia did only bad things? Or even that it was the worst? The Irish were treated much worse by the English than any Europeans were by the Russians.

Shortly before Strelkov officially left his post there were tons of rumors that he’d sustained a major injury or been killed, and Strelkov himself didn’t say anything during this period (about a few days) until he resurfaced and denied he’d been injured.

I’d guess that the connections he made as an FSB colonel and his cooperation with Moscow early on probably saved him from getting gunned down under questionable circumstances.

So you've joined the fun too, old man ? (or have you been part of it all along?) Not that I excepted you to master elementary arithmetic or basic facts about human biology, but you seem as much of a stranger to your own native language. If you really are different from "AP" / "Dr. Preobrazhensky", those cerebral lesions seem to be multiplying apace in your poor organism. Soon you won't be able to type any more, and that will be a mercy for everyone.

So, it took, what, fifty comments of grilling, and the biggest gotcha at the end of it was that AP is guilty of having rounded up from 0.65 to 1? Seriously? That's it?

If that's the best his opponents can manage (despite outnumbering him about 4-to-1), that's as good an admission of defeat on their part as anyone should need.

So you’ve joined the fun too, old man ? (or have you been part of it all along?) Not that I excepted you to master elementary arithmetic or basic facts about human biology, but you seem as much of a stranger to your own native language. If you really are different from “AP” / “Dr. Preobrazhensky”, those cerebral lesions seem to be multiplying apace in your poor organism. Soon you won’t be able to type any more, and that will be a mercy for everyone.

Thanks you for the information. But since in Austria there was no "General-oberst" this would make Feldmarschall-Leutnant the second from the top rank ?

I’m not claiming the Russian Empire was a utopia, but if we want to talk about opportunity, Poles and Ukrainians were given a lot more chances to climb the social ladder than their brethren in Austria-Hungary and Prussia.

Again, was it opportunity? Russia absorbed the Ukrainian Hetman State, which was full of high-ranking officers (and thus their descendants) with generations of military backgrounds. Paskevich and the Razumovsky families, for example, came from such backgrounds.

Austria absorbed Galicia, whose Ukrainian population were almost all serfs, and whose non-serfs were either village priest-families or poor petty gentry who were basically just lived as free farmers (these two groups overlapped) . Shashkevich, the Feldmarschall-Leutnant, was from a priest/petty gentry family. His father was the first in the family to go into the military, and he became a major. The captains, majors, colonels of Galician Ukrainian origins thus represented very substantial social mobility. A Ukrainian descendant of Cossack colonels who became a Russian general does not seem better than a Ukrainian captain who grandparents were somebody's property.

The other point is that advancement or having a good life in general in Russia seems to have been more conditional on loyalty to the Russian state. That is, Poles or Ukrainians loyal to the Hapsburgs did not produce as many generals as did those loyal to the Tsars, but those who were not so loyal or who pursued their own national interests were much less likely to be persecuted, such as sent to Siberia.

As I had mentioned earlier, other factors supported the idea that Russia was worse than Austria.* Serfdom was less onerous in Austria than in Russia (serfs obligations were cut down, they had access to neutral courts, etc.) and was abolished 13 years earlier. Schools were organized much earlier and in the local language, such that full literacy of children (for Ukrainians) was achieved by 1910 and never happened under the Tsars. The Bolsheviks managed it in the 1920s and Tsars probably would have done the same by then or not much later.

*Note that I am deliberately not writing "Austria-Hungary." The Hungarian part was unambiguously repressive towards it Slavic subjects.

Thanks you for the information. But since in Austria there was no “General-oberst” this would make Feldmarschall-Leutnant the second from the top rank ?

Under peacetime circumstances yes, you are correct. Field Marshals would have de facto seniority over Full Generals in war, and during WWI the Austrians introduced the rank of General-oberst to line up with the reality of their greatly expanded field army.

Taking a look at this chart it would seem that many peacetime corps commanders (the highly sought after capstone to an officer’s career) started out as FMLs, and would be promoted to Full General once it was shown they were capable of the role (maybe two years). I suspect a lot of this was due to the tight budget the AH army operated under, the Germans and the Russians generally were more generous about bestowing promotions (and higher salaries) to their senior commanders.

So you've joined the fun too, old man ? (or have you been part of it all along?) Not that I excepted you to master elementary arithmetic or basic facts about human biology, but you seem as much of a stranger to your own native language. If you really are different from "AP" / "Dr. Preobrazhensky", those cerebral lesions seem to be multiplying apace in your poor organism. Soon you won't be able to type any more, and that will be a mercy for everyone.

Heh…he showed that your “triumph” was yet another failure. I wasn’t off by 13 years even, but only 7. Only one year more than you were. And that is the most you can do.

How Long Is A Generation?In general we think of a generation being about 25 years - from the birth of a parent to the birth of a child. We also generally accept that the length of a generation in earlier periods of history was closer to 20 years when humans mated younger and life expectancies were shorter.

How Long Is A Generation?
In general we think of a generation being about 25 years – from the birth of a parent to the birth of a child. We also generally accept that the length of a generation in earlier periods of history was closer to 20 years when humans mated younger and life expectancies were shorter.

Has it ever occurred to you that for people with functioning brains there are other arguments than that from (super-flimsy) authority? (Hint: I provided an unanswerable one myself.) No, I suppose it wouldn't.

How Long Is A Generation?In general we think of a generation being about 25 years - from the birth of a parent to the birth of a child. We also generally accept that the length of a generation in earlier periods of history was closer to 20 years when humans mated younger and life expectancies were shorter.

Has it ever occurred to you that for people with functioning brains there are other arguments than that from (super-flimsy) authority? (Hint: I provided an unanswerable one myself.) No, I suppose it wouldn’t.

Has it ever occurred to you that for people with functioning brains there are other arguments than that from (super-flimsy) authority? (Hint: I provided an unanswerable one myself.) No, I suppose it wouldn't.

In other words, “let’s do away with argument-by-authority, and instead just go by what I myself so authoritatively provided.”

That depends — do you mean reasoning as everyone else regards it, or is this some other word that, like “generation”, you peremptorily concocted a definition that suited you better, and then authoritatively insisted that the one that other people use is wrong? Either way, reasoning is evidently not something you’re qualified to speak about, especially not with respect to what other people mean by it.

It is worth noting, however, that if you engage in that kind of semantic switch often, it would explain a great deal about the rest of your comments.

That depends -- do you mean reasoning as everyone else regards it, or is this some other word that, like "generation", you peremptorily concocted a definition that suited you better, and then authoritatively insisted that the one that other people use is wrong? Either way, reasoning is evidently not something you're qualified to speak about, especially not with respect to what other people mean by it.

It is worth noting, however, that if you engage in that kind of semantic switch often, it would explain a great deal about the rest of your comments.

Although I should probably defer to your expertise on the topic of whores (since that would make for an argument-from-authority that might actually be convincing), I reiterate that you apparently have no expertise whatsoever regarding other people's motivations, especially mine, so we might as well leave it at that.

Although I should probably defer to your expertise on the topic of whores (since that would make for an argument-from-authority that might actually be convincing), I reiterate that you apparently have no expertise whatsoever regarding other people’s motivations, especially mine, so we might as well leave it at that.

Blogroll

This is not so much meant to be comprehensive as to illustrate the themes and individual thinkers whom I follow and am inspired by.

I do not bother including any MSM outlets, since I’m sure they can do just fine without my publicity.

Blogs which I consider to be particularly good and/or prominent are highlighted in bold, and blogs that appear to have gone dormant appear at the end in italics. While I try to keep these things objective, if you include me in your blogroll that does vastly increase the chances that I’ll reciprocate.